Live Debate: Putting carbon capture and storage into motion

Chris Davies: I think a lot of ground has been covered in the past 12 months. I think the most recent figures within the last few days showing the extent to which Europe’s reductions in CO2 emissions have partly been at the expense of the increase in CO2 emissions in China, which of course is hugely coal dependent, does remind us that if we don’t deal with the issue of emissions from large fossil fuel power stations, then we are stuffed in terms of dealing with the problem of global warming. I want them to grab the money that’s going and just spend it as fast as they can and get these projects going, and then let’s look around and say, either it’s up to the private sector or we’ll need more public support but let’s get going and get these projects underway.

Piotr Tulej: I think no project will happen in Europe unless we have the Directive transposed into international laws, and this is one of the elements that the Commission will monitor. We have already signals from some member states that have taken this task on board and they are working on the transposition of the CCS Directive into their national legislation.

Vicente Cortes: CIUDEN is a government owned organisation, a research organisation, non-profit, aimed to develop technologies for clean coal utilisation; at this time, clean coal utilisation is CCS of course. We are fully supported by the Spanish Government and we have started construction of a large pilot in northern Spain with two technologies for oxycombustion: pulverised coal and CFB. The second one is the largest ever in the world – 30 megawatts for oxycombustion. We will be ready for operation by approximately May 2010 and our main characteristic is we have a fully integrated plant. From the very beginning of the coal preparation to the production of CO2 purified to whatever quality would be required for transport and storage. In our opinion, this integration is of the utmost importance because more and more power plants are changing to be chemical plants. More and more processes that usually are being used in the chemical industry are incorporated into the power stations but with a difference. Chemical plants do not like transient conditions but power stations do require transient conditions because they must adapt to load changes flexibility.

Piotr Tule: We should be cautious in using performance standards until the technology is not proven. We are in the middle of a complex process, in which we are transforming a non-sustainable electricity supply system into a sustainable one. So why we are strongly in favour of developing a solution, developing a new technology and low carbon technologies among them, we are suggesting to consider that critical aspect which is very important.

Stephan Singer: We have been at WWF cautiously a supporter of CCS because for us it’s a kind of transitional solution to a low carbon society – not only in Europe and in the US but globally. However, there are a couple of things which came up in the last couple of months, if not years, which make us a little bit more cautious on our cautious support and that is an issue that needs to be solved, and I appeal to those who work on pilot projects. One issue is water consumption. There is growing evidence that many CCS technology will use lots of fresh water; in particular, up to six times more fresh water than normal condensing boiler plants. That is particularly true for pulverised coal, for super-critical coal and for post-combustion plants. It’s not true, apparently, based on the data from the water resource institutes which came out a couple of weeks ago with gasification.

Dana Spinant: I’m dying to ask one question to the members of the panel. The elephant in the room – the first one was financing. So allow me to ask every member of the panel who should pay for CCS?

Chris Davies: I am conscious that Shell’s analysis as to how to deal with the climate change problem has placed great emphasis on CCS, and I think that’s been very important in demonstrating CCS has a hugely important role to play. And I’m also conscious that Shell and other oil companies have played a big part in advocating CCS development, which has helped bring about the progress that we’ve made over the past 12 months. But I’m also conscious that these same companies have over the past 12 months, maybe over the next 12 months, but have made huge sums of money. And a lot of politicians are asking why isn’t some of that private sector money going upfront, not simply on pilot projects but on big scale demonstration projects?

Vicente Cortes: Our action in itself is nonsense if we do not have a public-private partnership. So we are doing this work for CUIDEN with a budget coming from the Government but not for the purpose of doing the economic development in itself - it’s nonsense. It’s to help companies based in Spain – you probably have to talk to Mr Barbucci in a few weeks – to put a practical action in the world of CCS. So we are investing money as a country already. Our budget is already 130 million Euros for the next 2½ years. So we put in money in order that we can have, in our country, companies in the frontline of CCS.

Piotr Tulej: We believe the revised Directive is going to bite. It’s going to make a difference. It’s going to show the results.

Dana Spinant: Is it Chris?

Piotr Tulej: And I think we all have a vested interest in making this Directive work.

Chris Davies: Is it? It’s a cap and trade system. In theory it should work. Of course, the International Emissions Trading Association will say it’s fantastic but, however, the scale of the problem is immense and I don’t see why we should put all our eggs in one basket.

David Bennetts: What are you going to do to sell this to the whole of Europe including people which matter? And, secondly, what is the policy towards India and China who have to be solved if you’re going to convince anyone else?

Chris Davies: I represent Manchester and I represent Liverpool. I can imagine being able to persuade people across Merseyside that it makes a good deal of sense to take the CO2 from large power stations round the Mersey, chlorine and big industrial plants – take that CO2 out and put it down disused gas reserves underneath the Irish Sea. But I would have a lot of problems selling the idea that it should be stored underneath Liverpool. So can we start off please recognising that it’s going to take a while before everyone gets a chance to see that DVD and is confident that these little bubbles stay firmly in the rock, and find some nice plants like the Statoil one and bury it underneath the water or some nice deserts like BP’s in Algeria, and start off by developing CCS in areas where public resistance will be at its weakest.

Piotr Tulej: I’m not convinced that we’ve fulfilled those requirements. I think thanks to the Council and the Parliament and Chris Davies personally, I think we’ve put all the safeguards in place in the Directive, and I think we can assure the public that whatever we do with the CO2 and we store it in the geological formations, we have strong mechanisms in place, whether for monitoring during the operation of the site or even after the closure of the site, we have proper financial assurances in place that whatever needs to be done in case leaks occur, it will be done.

Graeme Sweeney: This is not an ‘or’ conversation. This is an ‘and / and’ conversation. So CCS is not going to fix all of this on its own, but it is going to be an integral part of it and my guess is it’s a quarter to a third of the total mitigation required between now and 2050, something of that sort. Four things, only four, that really, really need to be done in this forward period. The first of these is to properly understand the division of the 300 million allowances between the renewables piece and the CCS piece. Let’s be clear about that. How much is it? And what burden as a result of that will fall on the member states? Two: we have to organise the CCS demo selection criteria. We need to get it fixed and we need to get it fixed soon. That will create the incentive for others to come forward who can comply with the selection criteria. We also need to work on the dispersement funding mechanism. We just need to know what it is. Personally I think there are some smart ways to do this and some dumb ways to do this – you might imagine. But what is even more important is that we are clear about how it’s going to be done and that needs to get done very quickly. And the last piece is we need to work on the knowledge sharing because this is one programme – it’s one programme; we didn’t talk much about that but it seems to me that’s important. This is one programme and it’s the cumulative knowledge within it that is the high value output and, by the way, that should also be traded from the European programme with the Americans and with the Chinese and with the Indians in order to create a global programme.