A flue gas can be cooled for carbon capture purposes with the use of a gas-to-gas exchanger, using air as the cooling media, downstream of a heat recovery process, and optionally upstream of a quenching process; the use of an amine chilling process to reduce the required flue gas cooling duties upstream of the CO2 absorber; the use of a gas-to-gas exchanger, using the absorber overhead as the cooling media, downstream of a heat recovery process, and optionally upstream of the quenching process; and/or the use of a quenching process in which heated water and condensate is cooled by an external cooling loop utilizing treated flue gas condensate in an evaporative cooling process.