Erik Lindeberg has been researching the idea of Carbon Capture and Storage since the 1980’s, when it was an infant technology. As Chief Scientist of Reservoir Technology at SINTEF Petroleum Research, Scandinavia’s largest independent research organisation, he has been an advocate of CCS as a way to overcome the ... Profile
Guest Speaker: Erik Lindeberg
Leave a Reply
Registered users must log in to post a comment. New users can register with Comment:Visions, and begin to leave comments once approved.
Loading ...
Twitter
RSS
LinkedIn
Youtube
Flickr
Twitter
LinkedIn
Youtube
Flickr
RSS
Adviser - solar/wind energy project
Landmarkfoundation, The Green Ticket
said: On 01/02/2009
No, think twice! The first fundamental flaw is the deceptive use of the term Carbon capture rather than Carbon-dioxide capture and storage (CCS). The element Carbon is the very treasure we have lost and need to reinstate in the active living strata of our planet. Scrubbing Carbon-dioxide (CO2) from e.g. fossil fuel power plants sounds great but what to do with the CO2, it conjures up images of nuclear waste storage, and the potential damage it can wreak on the planet. Therefore the second flaw with CCS is the current lack of understanding (for the time being) how to securely put away Carbon-dioxide without creating the next best natural catastrophe. Nobody in their right mind would want to capture and store Carbon, you would rather want to restore it to the soil and make it available to living systems on the planet both natural and agricultural. Carbon-dioxide is not the villain either, it is essential in our atmosphere. Junior-high biology makes it clear that Carbon-dioxide is a critical input fuel for the primary producers (plants & animals) that we need to survive on and mitigate climate change. Can you reasonably lock away CO2 en-masse without asking whether you are robbing the planet, yet again, of its natural propensity to sort out the climate change dilemma? It begs serious deliberation of the intent behind proponents of CCS. Excess Carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere is the direct result of organic or fossil Carbon being combusted or lost in the human quest for energy and resources through extraction (deep Carbon) as well as unsustainable land-uses like agriculture and forestry (soil Carbon). A huge chunk of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere is the result of deforestation alone. Bringing those forests back would need CO2 so you need to ask at least one question: How much CO2 must remain in the atmosphere to help mitigate climate change?
Carbon Storage Specialist
Senergy Ltd
said: On 01/02/2009
If I can start with a double negative it is clearly not sensible not to ask questions. We should all have enquiring minds. But if the question is asking if we should be getting on now with planning and implementing industrial scale carbon capture, transport and storage projects then the answer is yes.
Having given legal force to the required CO2 emissions reductions, politicians have to ensure that the necessary mechanisms are in place such that developers and operators of fossil fuelled power generation equipped with carbon capture are not at a financial disadvantage compared with other electricity generators (for instance fossil fuel generation without CCS). This needs to be done now as, at present, with this new technology there are significant cost penalties as we are only at the start of the learning curve when it comes to industrial scale applications.
However, all the elements of the CCS chain have been demonstrated on an industrial scale. The best example of an integrated project is the capture facility at the Great Plains gasification plant in North Dakota where 160 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d) of synthetic natural gas are produced from the gasification of coal with a by-product of 240 MMscf/d or 4.6 million tonnes per year (mill te/y) of CO2. Around two-thirds of this CO2 (2.9 mill te/y) is captured and exported along a 205 mile long pipeline heading northward to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan where it is injected for enhanced oil recovery and storage in the Weyburn and Midale oil fields.
From the UK point of view I see proving up sufficient storage capacity as the weakest part of the CCS chain. UK fuel mix predictions consistent with an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 (from 1990 base) indicate that around 4 billion tonnes of storage capacity is required for CO2 captured from the power sector from 2020-2050 rising to around 8 billion tonnes by 2070 (i.e. for the first 50 years of CCS in the power sector). Additional capacity will be required for any CO2 captured at any other industrial sources.
On the face of it we are well off for storage sites in the UK with our access to offshore oil and gas fields. However, offshore CO2 enhanced oil recovery has so far proved uneconomic because of the high capital costs required to redevelop and refurbish the subsurface and facilities for extended lifetime, and to deal with the special requirements of injecting and producing CO2. For early projects the depleted gas fields of the Southern North Sea and the East Irish Basin offer significant capacity, but this can only be achieved if injection systems can be engineered to control the flow of high pressure dense phase CO2 into gas fields that are initially at low abandonment pressures (Senergy is launching a Joint Industry Project to research this issue). This leaves storage in saline aquifers.
CO2 storage of around one million tonnes a year for twelve years has been successfully demonstrated in the Utsira formation aquifer above the Sleipner gas field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. However, 180 miles away to the north at the Tordis field, produced water reinjection into the same formation resulted in a fracture of the seal leading to the polluted waste water escaping up to the sea. This indicates that identifying suitable saline aquifer formations and proving up their safe disposal rate and capacity requires extensive data gathering, model building and dynamic assessments of the same order as those required for hydrocarbon developments. A key issue is formation quality (porosity and permeability) and the hydraulically connected volume that can respond on the timescale of the operational phase of the project (storage sites are expected to operate for 30-50 years). Because of the modest compressibility of the water and formation, the usable volume at sites is likely to only be about a quarter of one percent of the pore volume unless water is produced to create the ‘pressure space’ to store the CO2; which then presents another disposal problem.
Finding and proving up good quality, large hydraulically connected pore systems with suitable traps will be vital if CCS is to progress in the UK and needs to be undertaken now. In my view it is unfortunate that the emphasis to date has been on determining theoretical capacities in aquifers (often large and meaningless numbers) with little of no regard to the dynamic and engineering issues.
Senior Energy Analyst
International Energy Agency (IEA)
said: On 01/02/2009
Carbon capture and storage has received a lot of attention in recent years, but the truth remains that there are only 4 full-scale integrated CCS projects worldwide. We need hundreds, if not thousands, of CCS projects to achieve climate stabilisation by 2050. CCS is particularly hard during the current financial crisis because in contrast to energy efficiency and some renewables, which deliver low-carbon solutions at a profit, CCS is essentially a very expensive pollution control technology that reduces energy efficiency. However, if we are to address emissions from coal-fired power stations and energy-intensive industry in time to solve the climate problem, we will need CCS in large quantities. Therefore, governments will need to lead—allocating real financing to deliver the full-scale demonstrations that are necessary to achieve commercialisation by 2020. These demonstrations will enable us to develop adequate regulatory and public consultation processes in parallel. The IEA is working with the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum and several national and international partners to develop a CCS Roadmap that will specify key targets and milestones that the international community will need to reach in order to successfully launch CCS in time to save the planet. For more information, visit
Founding Director
CO2DeepStore Ltd
said: On 01/02/2009
I believe that politicians, regulators and the general public still have a lot of questions about carbon capture and storage (CCS) – but I believe that the issue is one of awareness and communication of answers that are known. As a result I think it reasonable to get on and do CCS now ……. but not with the disregard for sensible questions implied by this question.
There are still some areas where valid questions remain
• The capital and operating costs of the main current post-combustion capture technology – amine – remain so high that it challenges the viability of CCS. As a result many companies are asking why they should act now when something better may come along later.
To address this reasonable concern new, lower energy technologies such as nanofiltration need to be developed and demonstrated as soon as possible. Similarly, alternative approaches such as oxyfuel and IGCC need to be demonstrated at scale and quickly.
• The long term behaviour of stored CO2 has some uncertainty – how rapidly CO2 dissolves in formation water, how rapidly CO2 mineralises; the long term interaction of CO2 and various caprock minerals etc. Whilst these are clearly issues of concern, they can be appropriately addressed by ensuring that early projects have multiple trapping mechanisms (a sort of “belt and braces” approach).
• The nature of long term monitoring of stores post-closure has hardly been discussed. StatoilHydro at Sleipner are undertaking regular – and hugely expensive – 3D seismic surveys. This is appropriate in early demonstrators, but is unlikely to add value at scale. Lower cost techniques such as monitoring reservoir pressure seem more appropriate – but sensors need to operate for 20-50 years, which is very unlikely with current technologies.
• The nature of long term liabilities has also hardly been discussed. Much of the regulation is based on a “polluter pays” principle – but the costs of remediation may be out of all proportion to the benefits gained.
The most likely leak path from a store is the wells that were drilled and subsequently sealed with concrete. The failure of sealed oil and gas wells is rare – so this seems to be a low-probability event that could be covered by insurance so that a leaking well can be re-sealed.
Less clear is how we detect – let alone remediate – a slow leak (maybe a few bubbles per day) – up an uncertain geological leak path. Unfortunately the “polluter pays” mindset makes this appear to be a “failure” – even if capable people have done all that is sensible to ensure that the store is sound, and a competent regulator has accepted that the evaluation and approach is sound.
I think that we should put these issues into perspective – a couple of percent leakage rate is a whole lot better than the current 100% leakage (up the chimney)!!!!
Director
The Bellona Foundation
said: On 01/02/2009
While a renewable energy system is the ultimate goal, we do not expect this to be achievable by 2050. From a climate perspective , however, there is hope. Fossil energy can be made close to carbon-neutral by deploying CCS systems. In the Bellona Scenario, carbon capture and storage is implemented at all remaining fossil energy power plants by 2050. Combating global warming is a big challenge. It’s time to get serious. CCS is a critical technology that needs to demonstrated at commercial scale and developed quickly.
Manager, Energy & Sustainable Development
Rio Tinto Energy Group
said: On 01/02/2009
Over the past 20 years, many questions have been asked about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and almost as many questions have been answered. A review of authoritative assessments (eg, International Panel on Climate Change, International Energy Agency, Battelle Memorial Institute etc…) of the potential role of CCS in mitigating climate change reveals common conclusions or answers to questions. These include:
Q: Why do we need CCS?
A: Fossil fuels such as coal will remain part of the energy mix, especially in developing economies, for the foreseeable future. CCS is required to reduce emissions from the use of those fuels. It is also required to reduce emissions from industrial processes that are large point sources of CO2 such as steel production.
Q: Does CCS work and is it safe?
A: Yes. All elements of CCS are currently in use in various industries, including gas storage in geological formations. However, these elements have not been integrated into a commercial scale plant that produces electricity and stores CO2 in geological formations.
A comprehensive list of questions and answers would fill a book. The questions that remain largely answered, asked by those who are attempting to deploy this technology, are commercial questions which ultimately distil down to “How much will it cost now and how much will that cost reduce over time?”. Like all technologies, the cost of CCS will reduce in real terms over time as the market, driven by competition, learns how to do it more efficiently. (The first DVD player I ever purchased cost over $1,200; they can now be purchased for $50!!) However, someone needs to build the first one to start that process. The only way to answer the remaining questions about CCS is to construct and operate large scale demonstration projects. That requires public as well as private funding because the multibillion dollar investment necessary to build a plant is too great a risk for any company to accept. Companies can only invest on commercial terms and the risk-benefit equation for investing in the first CCS plants is not commercially viable. (If you have superannuation or a retirement fund, you will be very interested in ensuring that the private sector continues to invest your money wisely!!) The reality is that if we are serious about mitigating climate change we must deal with the emissions from fossil fuels (particularly coal & natural gas) because they will remain a dominant energy source throughout this century. CCS is the technology that provides that capability.
So I would like to re-phrase the question to:
Q: Carbon Capture and Storage: do it now to answer our questions?
A: Absolutely yes.
Senior Lecturer
University of Edinburgh
said: On 01/02/2009
The field in which I am working is much more the storage end of things. My qualifications are in geology, hydrogeology, engineering geology and computer modelling of geosystems and geo-reservoirs. As much of the storage of CO2 is proposed to be in deep subsurface saline aquifers or depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs, it is essential to ensure that we have a manageable appreciation of the risk associated with the containment of such large volumes of CO2 for a substantial period of time.
Computer models of the systems to assess risk are only as good as the experimental data which you can put into the models, and the assumptions used in modelling to represent the real life systems. Injecting CO2 into the subsurface means artificially emplacing a large volume of chemically reactive material at a different temperature and pressure to its surroundings into a complex three dimensional geological environment. Added to this complexity is the fact that in several reservoirs a number of “man made pin pricks” have already been constructed due to previous drilling for hydrocarbons. Here scientific investigation at a series of scales of work, from laboratory tests of a few centimetres to determine what the dominant processes are at what we call the “pore scale” to real life field scale tests and small scale pilot projects, are of immense importance in making sure the scientists can make assessments of the suitability of storage sites. Additionally identifying efficient monitoring technology to ensure that the CO2 remains where it is supposed to be is also a poignant issue. A number of national and EU research projects are concentrating on various themes in these areas currently.
However, although reservoir engineering has been around along time, and CO2 has been used for over a decade now in some sites to stimulate oil production or indeed pilot CO2 injection sites, we are far from a comprehensive understanding of the various processes in the subsurface to be able to proceed generally with CO2 injection into every reservoir out there. By injecting too quickly into the wrong reservoirs, it is possible that there might be failure of the sealing capacity. This would have a negative effect on public opinion and put a very promising technology in a bad light.
Over a depth of about 800 m CO2 becomes supercritical, this means that there is no longer a phase boundary between gas and liquid. The consequence of this is that CO2 becomes much denser than its gas form, one can image its density in this state as being slightly less than water, and therefore it is possible to store much more CO2 in a small volume. This is the reason why industry and academia are concentrating on injection at depths of over 800 m. However a competing influence is the cost of such deep injection. The deeper the injection the higher the plant and running costs. Given the complexity involved with understanding the subsurface reservoirs and in light of the drive to inject CO2 in the ground, it seems to me that for those wanting to inject now, the best advice would be to start with really deep well contained injection sites, i.e. over 2km in depth. Although more expensive than the shallower sites it would allow the science some catch up time before shallower and potentially more cost efficient sites can be exploited.
Director of Communications
European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power plants (ZEP)
said: On 03/02/2009
A large number of clear, credible answers already exist in support of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS), but its potential to reduce the world’s CO2 emission by half and the continued need for fossil fuels to meet our energy needs for the foreseeable future are justification enough to implement this technology as rapidly as possible. With a variety of technologies involved in CCS having been safely and thoroughly tested over the last several decades, the challenge is now to integrate them all in commercial-scale plants, where CCS can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 90%.
Late last year, the leaders of the EU took a decisive step toward making the widespread deployment of CCS a reality by agreeing to co-fund – along with industry- up to 12 demonstration projects across the EU. The aim is to enable the commercial application of CCS by 2020. If, as projected, 80-120 commercial CCS projects are in operation in Europe by 2030, then they could prevent the emission of some 400 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.
But time is now of the essence, as each year that passes makes the task of keeping the global temperature increase below 2°C that much more difficult. Should we fail, we face irreversible changes that will have disastrous effects on ourselves and the environment. We must use every means at our disposal to combat climate change, and CCS stands alongside renewables and greater energy efficiency in order to do just that.
Founder
Carbon Capture & Storage Association
said: On 03/02/2009
The Reality:
Climate change is here and the impacts are already being felt. The majority of scientists agree the causes are from human behaviour and if unchecked could signal irreversible damage to the planet and its ecosystems as well as extinction of many species. Clearly, this is an undesirable scenario. In addition, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the global dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to be broken in the immediate future, and as well as adding to the climate change problem, this dependence also adds to sustainability and energy security issues.
So much focus has now turned to CCS and its ability to reduce emissions from fossil fuels by up 90%. Compared with other low-carbon technologies such as some renewable technologies and nuclear, CCS has not been around very long, and it needs to reach a level of maturity to be able to fulfil its role
within the portfolio of climate change mitigation options. The separate parts of the CCS chain; capture, transport and storage are in use around the world in various operations and the next natural step is to integrate these into commercial scale power plants. Fully integrated projects are urgently needed to better understand the technology and its benefits – this can only happen from projects in operation, and the longer we wait to build these, the more we delay a vital part of the demonstration phase – improving performance and efficiencies. Such early demonstration has been the case with other low-carbon technologies, such as wind power, and CCS should be treated no differently.
Will it work safely – all current evidence points to that it will but there really is only one way to find out. By building as many large-scale CCS plants as early as possible, the different types of capture technologies, transport methods and storage sites can be fully investigated. This will lead to better understanding of the options that should be used in any specific situation and all options must be demonstrated – picking certain options is simply only telling half the story, and prevents CCS from reaching its full potential.
Can we afford it – CCS is currently an expensive technology, but so are all new technologies in the early phase of demonstration, and the only way to bring costs down is to build projects. However, these projects won’t be built on their own – the return on investment is currently not attractive and early projects will therefore require additional public support to reach a point of commercial viability. Such support is common for other low-carbon technologies.
Finally, the biggest challenge is; do we have the time to wait.
Will climate change wait until we can meet our energy demand wholly through low-carbon technologies? If the recent major natural disasters are anything to go by as well as the perceived increase in global temperature that is already taking place, then the answer is clearly no. Will emerging economies such as China and India wait to build fossil-fuelled power stations whilst developed countries bring forward new renewable technologies that can satisfy the massive increasing energy demand in these emerging countries? Unlike the recent focus on climate change in the developed world, increasing energy supply and security is likely to remain the priority in these countries for some time, and least-cost options for mitigating climate change in this situation are few and far between.
So, do we have a choice about CCS? Climate change is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges facing mankind today and it will require every possible option available to prevent the worst impacts from happening. Sacrifices will have to be made, money will have to be spent and without CCS in the mix, the task will be virtually insurmountable.
So if there really is no choice but to build CCS, what are we waiting for?
Founding Partner
Greenhouse Gas Storage Solutions
said: On 03/02/2009
Is this a supportable statement? From a technology viewpoint there is no compelling reason that the world could not now be implementing carbon dioxide capture and geological storage at a large scale. Of course, there are currently considerable financial and policy reasons why no large scale integrated commercial scale projects have been built to date, and/or are being delayed, but there are no major technology ‘show stoppers’; provided appropriate technologies are used at appropriately selected sites. With the ongoing delay of large scale implementation of CCS, the inbuilt linkages between needing to be ‘storage ready’ before being ‘capture ready’ has effectively meant that full commercial implementation and large scale uptake is receding further into the future. And we knew ten years ago that we were running out of time, so things are just getting worse.
There are a complexity of issues that large scale integrated CCS operations have to consider, beyond just policy and financial matters. There are many technical matters to consider, but they are not ‘show stoppers’. But they need to be acted upon now at an industrial scale to accelerate the deployment of CCS commercially. Before they can be done appropriate government, economic and industrial incentives are required so that work can commence and be deployed globally. The current economic downturn is a prime time for government and industry to invest in such major nation building infrastructure; just like the dam construction for water and hydroelectric power supply in the 1950s and 60s and the railway networks of the 1800s. All built for public good and commercial need.
Continuing delay promulgates significant risk to the environment and our technical ability to implement the technology in an appropriate time frame to deliver the desired outcome. The first endeavours into commercial scale operations of CCS will bring substantial new knowledge and insights; both from a capture and geological perspective. Sound policy needs to be in place to assist and encourage first movers and to help share the knowledge they produce. Over 500 new power stations will be required by 2050, and with the extremely high cost of new nuclear plants they will undoubtedly be coal or gas based. These operations will need to be CCS compliant to produce near zero greenhouse gas emission outcomes.
There are inherent delays in the process of proving up a storage site, and constructing an industrial site with capture technology. Following is an example.
From a geological perspective, there are many good regions around the world in which to begin exploration for geological storage sites and commence injection and storage activities. Some sites we know will absolutely produce safe and sustainable locations for geological storage. Others sites we know will not be favourable. Between those obvious end members are sites that will require acquisition of new data and testing of the rock sequences. Such tests will determine what level of commercial and technical risk is required to transform our knowledge of those sites such they are considered as favourable locations, and so they can be operated with an assurance that they will provide safe and sustainable geological storage of CO2.
As for exploration for oil and gas, ‘proving up’ a geological storage site to the appropriate level of technical certainty before injection and storage commences, requires up to 3 years of considerable effort, with drilling of wells and probably acquisition of detailed 2D and most likely 3D reflection seismic. It is this lead time that many observers are not necessarily calculating into the timeframe for uptake of CCS. As for oil and gas exploration, not all exploration activities will be successful, and despite investment of many millions of dollars in exploration, some sites will ultimately prove to be unfavourable, or have levels of uncertainty that are not acceptable to the proponents, or which can’t be easily or cheaply resolved. In oil and gas exploration such failures are built into the overall profitability and finding costs. For CCS it is a cost also, but right now it is an inherent delay period that has not been factored in appropriately, and which could become critical. Thus CCS operations have to consider these possible outcomes and each capture operation will have to build in redundancy for their storage opportunities and explore for multiple sites; not just depend solely on advancing a single site for a successful outcome.
Due to the high costs of exploration such as drilling of wells and acquisition of reflection seismic data, the best way to undertake such exploration is by sharing the financial risk of the activities. This will mean involving joint ventures between interested investors, who may need to each have a diversified portfolio of potential storage sites, some which provide high levels of certainty for an outcome and others that may be more ‘risky’ due to a lack of information, but which have great potential. In this way a range of geological storage sites will emerge across different regions of the world; just as oil and gas fields are found and developed around the world now.
However, before this can happen, governments must put in place the licensing and land tenure systems to allow organisations to explore for storage sites. Many of the geological storage explorers will not want to invest in exploration until the conditions of such access are well known and documented. Such government considerations and documentation can take several years to put in place.
Along with the initial regulatory and legislative delays to create a licensing system, there are of course issues with the financial incentives for this all to happen. Currently, many power station operators are looking at the issue of emission reductions as more of an ongoing license to continue to operate. But they need to be able to undertake CCS in a profitable manner to be sustainable, and in many of the current regimes around the world, CCS is just an additional cost burden to power station operators.
Design of power plants with capture is something that can be done without the final geographic site fully known. But the actual construction and decision to build the plant should only occur once a storage site has been proven with high certainty. There must be certainty of both the technical credentials of the storage site to be a safe and sustainable solution, as well as to its ability to match the total capacity and rates of supply that will come from the capture operation. If a storage site is proven to be unsustainable once it is operating, then having other nearby sites available will ensure that a capture plant does not have to vent its CO2 (probably at a cost).
So, “Carbon Capture and Storage: don’t ask questions, just do it now?” is a sentiment that is supportable and which recognises the need to move with haste whilst acknowledging the technical maturity that the industry currently has developed. Continuing emergence of research based small scale projects won’t deliver those outcomes; industrial activities with commercial scale deployment are essential. There is a pressing and urgent need to move with haste, and there are no compelling technical reasons not to deploy CCS at a large scale now. But there are many steps in the natural decision flow and processes of an integrated CCS project that will impede rapid uptake and deployment. To avoid further delays, government and industry must work together to deliver the required outcomes of emission reductions for the benefit of the community.
Flood and Coastal Management
Dutch ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management
said: On 03/02/2009
Not asking questions is never a good thing, but we should also remember that questions are a non-limited resource.
The issue of climate change may be the largest and most important challenge that mankind will ever face. Unfortunately the issue has become fragile due to a struggle between believers and non believers. “It’s all uncertain, too early to take expensive action”, says the non believer, “it’s all uncertain, but the price of inaction will be too high, we should start yesterday”, says the believer. Both of them arguing differently given the same situation, fearing either a waste of money or a waste of planet.
Even though the price of saving our planet can never be too high, we should keep looking at the science and the facts. In management terms: applying the precautionary principe (better safe than sorry) does not mean we shouldn’t be working with thorough long term cost-benefit analyses. It’s exactly this notion that would leave me hesitant with respect to immediate large scale carbon capture and storage. The questions will be neverending: Is the amount we can capture and store significant in terms of its potential effect on global carbon reduction and hence, limiting climate change? Do the benefits related to carbon capture and storage outweigh its costs? What’s the balance between investing in climate mitigation and in climate adaptation? Where do we put our money?
On the other hand: no guts no glory. Trial and error, we won’t know if we try. Stimulate the market to further develop the technique of carbon capture and storage and – in parallel – get better grip on costs and benefits with a clear eye for other alternatives and joint fact finding.
Director of the Caring for Climate Initiative
UN Global Compact
said: On 03/02/2009
Carbon capture and storage will help bringing our emissions of carbon dioxide in balance with the earth’s capability to naturally absorb them. We need to find ways to force this absorption.
Theoretically we can. Take a large CO2 emitter, separate its CO2 from the flue gas, make sure it is dry, compress to liquefy and transport it to a sink where it can be stored safely (a sudden release can be deadly), without negative impacts on the environment…Picture big towers, compressors and pipes, an energy-intense processing plant stuck to each large combustion plant. Operating costs (at technology maturity) between € 30 to 50 per tonne of CO2 avoided*.
It is an expensive solution. Will it be affordable for many of the existing pulverized coal burning plants? Not without massive prior retrofit for efficiency. Is every efficient CO2 emitter just ideally located above the perfect 20-30 years storage capacity? No, and we need the maps and the statistics to better understand the scope of CCS.
The global emission scenarios tell us that carbon capture and storage will be essential to stay below the safety limits estimated for atmospheric CO2 concentration. Therefore we must accelerate the development and deployment of large-scale pilot facilities. I have faith in the engineering skills to deliver safe operations and the openness of industry to win the public’s trust.
But it seems to me that the most difficult part is to muster a global political will to design policies that will ensure an increasing value (or cost) for the avoidance of CO2 emissions. Thus, those who contribute to emissions that exceed the limits that endanger everyone’s climate are pushed to look at all mitigation options that cost less than the highest marginal cost options like CCS
In the lower part (€5 to 40/tonne*) of this value curve to avoid CO2 emissions lies another perfectly proven technology of carbon capture and storage: photosynthesis. It has already worked for millions of years – turning CO2 into carbohydrates, capturing it as biomass that, in deep storage, became fossil hydrocarbons while the atmosphere reached the right oxygen balance and temperature for life as we know it. Without question, we must also make this technology work massively for climate by turning forests again into net carbon sinks, instead of destroying them in many parts of the world!
*More data in Investing in Climate Change 2009
CO2 Abatement and Carbon Recycling
Strategic Visionary Alternatives
said: On 03/02/2009
Carbon may not be a one use fuel and this statement is currently being vetted in Canada. I would ask that the injection well industry stop using the bully pulpit to rush CO2 producers into a panicked and possible very unwise industry wide response to this threat until all current options are on the table. CO2 does NOT belong underground normally and this industry is likely setting up yet another negative externality in the form of waste of two building blocks of chemistry, oxygen and carbon. I appeal to the better judgment of science to work hard to briefly delay this wasteful and very costly approach. The vetting of alternatives such as carbon recycling should take no more than 4 more years, so those in the industry who rush to bury CO2 may be big financial losers in less than 10 years. CO2 abatement with carbon recycling is becoming a realizable technology and just needs time to scale up. This development would completely change the future for CO2 treatment. It is a very aggressive technology and will be such a game-changing development that the “don’t ask Questions, just do it” approach may go down in history in infamy as the most rash and unscientific statement ever made. We do have time to make certain that the option of utilizing CO2 at the source rather than sweeping another tough problem under the rug gets us into later trouble. Again, there is very strong evidence that CO2 is a good feedstock for numerous compounds. The alarmists should not be allowed to hold a gun to our heads before innovation has exhausted wiser use options for CO2 and if they prevail, the industry is probably going to lose a lot of resources and money. Abatement is a 95% removal of CO2 from the environment. It is worth the short wait.
Senior Manager- Advanced Fossil Fuel Use
South African National Research Institute
said: On 06/02/2009
The issue with the carbon capture and storage technology is not whether is works, but is rather a scale-up matter along with the integrity of the storage.
Capture and transport are technologies that one could buy ‘off-the-shelf’ – they may be costly but they can be purchased.
On the other hand, geological storage is not only country specific but also area specific. To this end it is necessary to fully appraise the geological potential of a country to store carbon dioxide – including proper mapping of potential storage sites and test injections to ascertain in situe storage integrity.
I believe that before one sees a large scale roll-out of carbon capture and storage the following have to be addressed:
Do it now? There are still too many unanswered questions and enabling factors to ‘do it now’. The whole issue of climate change is a result of the ‘do it now’ combustion of fossil fuels over the past few centuries [for which we must thank the world’s present state of development]. It would be prudent to ensure that the roll-out of carbon capture and storage technologies are safe over the long term and that we do not find ourselves sometime in the future in a similar position to that we find ourselves regarding say the release of greenhouse gases or say the release of ozone layer destroying substances.
Overall, it needs to be recognised that carbon capture and storage it a transition technology until the world weans itself from fossil fuels to nuclear and renewables.
The opinion is a personal one and does not necessarily reflect the policy of SANERI or the South African government.
Member
BHP Billiton
said: On 06/02/2009
The power sector has relied on fossil fuels for decades – but now it is facing significant uncertainty on two fronts. On the one hand, climate change policy is evolving very fast. The rules affecting the price of carbon today did not exist a few years ago, and we can expect that carbon markets will continue to change, and the impact on the competitiveness of coal, gas, nuclear and renewables will be significant. On the other hand, technological innovation is also changing the dynamics of the power sector. It is still unclear which version of carbon capture (pre-combustion, post-combustion or oxyfuel) will emerge as the winning solution for future and for existing power plants, and how expensive will it be to install and operate.
Power companies with large capex budgets to spend are thus faced with significant uncertainty regarding which energy source will be competitive in the future – and are understandably reluctant to commit billions of euros in new power plants. As a result, progress (in terms of CO2 emitted per unit of electricity generated) is slow. If climate change calls for immediate action, then this is not the right outcome. It is in the common interest to minimise this uncertainty by accelerating the deployment of CCS. Governments can put the right legislation in place to enable CO2 transportation and storage, and provide guarantees that the price of carbon will remain sufficiently high for CCS to become economically viable. These strong signals will encourage the private sector (power utilities, equipment manufacturers, energy companies) to step in and accelerate the deployment of the first genereation of CCS power plants.
Investigator
Center for Information Management and Energy Development (CUBAENERGIA)
said: On 09/02/2009
There are not many options that allow us to stabilize in a short-term the GHG atmospheric concentrations and unfortunately in most of primary energy supply scenarios, fossil fuels will continue dominating until mid-century. Therefore my answer is YES to the question: Carbon capture and storage: don’t ask questions, just do it now?
The CCS can certainly help to reduce these concentrations, especially for electricity generation. Although, as an only mitigation option, it will not achieve the desired stabilizers so it should be used together with other measures.
The CCS large-scale deployment is related with the implementation of international commitments, thus a higher rigor in the fulfilments of the commitments will accelerate its introduction.
For developing countries the CCS will hardly be introduced as a mitigation option in a short term, these countries have no obligations and certainly they need first a bigger economic development. So, it is foresee that the CCS will be introduced in developed countries with reduction commitments, firstly, and then, perhaps as a technology transfer, it could be used in other countries.
In any case, there are still many uncertainties associated with this technology that should be resolved in order to increase its acceptance. It is an expensive technology, which is a strong constraint.
General Manager
IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme
said: On 11/02/2009
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has been demonstrated already at a commercial scale in the oil and gas industry so in fact we are doing it now. We have 6 major projects injecting about 7 Mt/year underground with no evidence of migration out of the reservoirs that the CO2 is being injected into. This experience in my opinion means that we should proceed to role out the implementation of CCS in the power sector and we have plans in Europe for a number of demonstration projects. If we can get these dozen or so power plant CCS schemes operational by 2020 we should have dealt with the technology scale up issues that need to be assessed to assure us that the technology can be even more widely deployed.
If we are serious in tacking climate change by stabilising the atmospheric concentration of CO2 which is the goal of the UNFCCC then we need to accelerate the amount of CO2 we are storing from 7Mt/y now to 250Mt/year of CO2 by 2020 and by 2050, 2000Mt/year CO2. The targets require a raid ramp up in deployment of CCS around the globe. Thus I believe we should be moving ahead with deployment faster than we currently are.
However I feel we must always ask questions, it would be irresponsible of us not to, because this is a new technology. We need to ensure the technology is safe that we have the capacity to store all the CO2 we need to, that we are confident that the CO2 stored remains underground that leaks if they do occur can be, quantified, remediated and we are assured that their environmental impact is minimal. The project developers need to be able to communicate these messages to stakeholders and the public so that we can deploy the technology at the scale required.
Senior Associate
World Resources Institute
said: On 11/02/2009
Keep asking questions—and don’t count CCS out before demonstrating it at industrial scale.
Global research and development programs for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) have been underway since the late 1990s, and a substantial amount of knowledge has been gained through successfully implemented research injections (like the US regional partnership program that included over 20 injections in different types of geologic formations). The remaining questions regarding CCS can only be answered with at-scale experience through demonstrations. We must immediately embark on a “crash program” to develop and deploy carbon storage capability on a massive, global scale. Underground storage is the only option on the table for dealing with CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants. We now know enough about [CCS siting, regulatory and liability challenges] http://www.wri.org/publication/ccs-guidelines) to quickly move towards industry-scale demonstrations. But CCS will require billions—not millions—in research funding. CCS demonstration projects require funding on the order of $1-1.5 billion per project. Investments on that scale will not happen fast enough without public subsidies, which should be a global priority.
The global development of environmental regulatory frameworks is testament to our readiness to demonstrate CCS. In 2008, regulatory frameworks for CCS were released at the state and federal level in the U.S. and Australia and a Directive for CCS was passed at the European Union level. Global progression towards a common understanding of how to safely implement the technology seems within reach. With investment in industrial-scale demonstrations, the remaining questions regarding CCS will be answered.
Group Chief Scientist
Rio Tinto
said: On 11/02/2009
We all know that in the long run, we are likely to use much less energy per head than today and we will source that energy from sources with very low net carbon emissions: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, Gen II biofuels, and nuclear.
Meanwhile, how do we get there with speed, minimum disruption and of course, socially acceptable and safe technologies. This month’s question is more than just a clue, it is the obvious answer, not for the ultimate answer to emissions but for a vital part of the way forward for the next 50 years or so.
Technically, this is not a challenge. There is over 30 years experience of sour gas injection and 15+ of EOR, all without calamities.
Other target resevoirs (deep saline or coal seams) are seen as similar but less economic.
Overall cost of abatement of CO2 is estimated to be of order 30% lower by 2050 with CCS than without. (Some estimates are even higher)
Permitting and public acceptance are 2 of the 3 big challenges.
The remaining big challenge is that initial costs will be high and “it is difficult to move down the learning curve based on a simple market signal, and where the benefit passes to society”
So, let’s get on with it now and address what is primarily a challenge of funding an implementation and learning curve. If it is seen as “picking a winner”, the answer is yes and the costs are high but waiting will only increase the costs and the impacts and we already know that CCS is feasible.
Responsible for EU government affairs
GE
said: On 20/02/2009
Regardless of the current challenges, global energy demand is expected to grow 54% by the year 2025. In a carbon-constrained world, meeting the world’s energy needs will require a broader mix of advanced technologies in coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar. GE is well positioned and has developed the right technologies to support its customers in their objectives to reach the ambitious 20-20-20 goals (20% efficiency increase, 20% CO2 reduction, 20% energy from renewables). But there is neither a single technology, nor a single policy that can meet that global challenge on its own. All stakeholders and decision makers (policy makers, industry, consumers, regulators, investors) have to join forces to deliver common, agreed-upon technological solutions for every single energy issue.
That is the case with carbon capture and storage (CCS). GE believes that, based on price and energy security, coal will have to be part of the world’s future energy mix. CCS solutions should therefore be demonstrated within the next decade through real projects . As such, the industry will be able to prove CCS viability, leverage public support, drive down costs and make CCS an economically feasible option for power generation, as well as an efficient tool to fight climate change and ensure global security of supply.
CCS technologies are, in general, well developed and ready to be demonstrated and deployed. Over the last 20 years, GE has made significant investments in pre-combustion Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology. GE has provided gasification equipment and gas turbines to over 15 IGCC plants. A further 26 gasification plants use CO2 separation technologies for industrial use. Having invested in bringing the technology to this level, GE looks forward to working with customers around the world to demonstrate its technology on a commercial scale, along with demonstrating transportation and storage capabilities. To learn more about GE’s exciting IGCC technology, go to: You Tube