CCS - The Urgency and
the Opportunity
Ron Oxburgh
Nottingham CICCS Launch, 8 February, 2008
The Problem

World energy demand increasing
– Rising world population
– Rising per cap use of energy

Traditional energy supply becoming uncertain
Putin’s
– Shortage of affordable oil and gas
– Political ‘management’ of supply
Tank

Environmental security

BUT world infrastructure totally dependent on
fossil fuel – with us for at least 50 years
– Burning fossil fuels changing the climate
Le Monde, 4 Nov. 2006
World Energy Use & Emissions
Energy Use
Building
& Other
26%
GHG Emissions
Industry
21%
Transport
17%
Electricity
36%
Building
& Other
15%
Electricity
43%
Industry
19%
Transport
23%
CO2, kg/MJ
Emissions depend both on fuel and
combustion mode
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
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C
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C
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c.
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CG C ro e ucle
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G Co
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CS
Aspects of the World distribution of
Oil, Gas and Coal
140.0
120.0
100.0
80.0
60.0
Energy Exporters
OIL
Energy Importers
COAL
GAS
40.0
20.0
0.0
Middle East
Russia
Africa
S. & Cent.
America
USA
China
India
CCS

Carbon capture and storage offers a way of
minimising emissions from static combustion
plants that generate GHG

With current technology means increase in
electricity costs ca. 30%

May be applied to:
– Fossil fuel plants to reduce emissions by 80 – 90%
– Non- fossil fuel plant to achieve negative emissions
Carbon Capture and Storage
Capture
COAL
COAL
MINE
Transport
CO2
Storage
CO2
CCS – the components

Capture
– Most expensive element; several competing technologies.
Currently increases capital cost and reduces power station
efficiency

Transport
– Nearly 40 years of US experience without serious incident

Storage
– Industry experience of behaviour of high pressure CO2
underground; new storage sites needed.
No full size power station in operation that captures
and stores its emissions
Capture

Capture is the largest part of the cost (?50-70% of cost);
& largest technical challenge

Pre- or Post-combustion?

Pre-combustion – several competing technologies primarily of new plant interest

Post-combustion

Comment
– Main application retrofit – vital for legacy power-stations
– Currently solvents (amines, chilled ammonia etc) to remove GHGs
– Experiments with membranes
–
–
–
–
Expensive (+30% on plant capex )
Loss of operating efficiency (-10-30%)
New more efficient technology needed
Large foot print
EU Carbon Capture Test facility
DONG 380 MW
Coal Plant, Esbjerg,
Denmark
EU Carbon Capture test facility (2)
DONG 380 MW
Coal Plant, Esbjerg,
Denmark
Transport

Pipelines
– 10-20% of cost
– Extensive experience in US over 40 years
– Few problems encountered
– European HSE different and separate ab initio
qualification required
– Concerns about high pressure CO2 pipelines in urban
areas
 Metal embrittlement around leaks
 Explosive release of CO2
 Drowning in inert gas
Storage
?10 – 20% cost; different geology means that different subsurface stores will be used in different places e.g. :


Abandoned oil and gas
fields

Enhanced oil recovery?

Abandoned coal mines
– co-production of methane?

Saline aquifers
Questions
– Purity of stored gas
– Long term integrity
 Seal security
 Pre-qualification
 Monitoring – inert tracers
and sniffers
– Insurance
– Subsurface behaviour of
supercritical CO2
Reservoir exploration is very time consuming
and must be started now – without it CCS fails
Research Piorities
 Cheaper,
more compact and more efficient
retrofittable CO2 separation technologies
 Development
of geophysical experience in
identifying saline aquifers
 Identifying
storage sites near major CO2
sources – slow and labour intensive

Primary energy user (CO2
generator) – sells CO2 @ C price less
x+y to:

Pipe line network operator

CO2 Store manager keeps y and
keeps x and – sells CO2 @ C price less y
to:
sells CO2 @ C price to market
Certificated Chain of Custody
How will the finances work?
The Problem

CCS will be an essential part of GHG management for
next 50 years

Power station emissions the largest single manageable
greenhouse gas contribution

Urgent that the technology be developed and applied as
widely and rapidly as possible

But CCS takes time to develop and install

Will not happen without an appropriate fiscal regime unrealistic to finance on a wildly fluctuating carbon price
Conclusions

CCS best option for large-scale storage of CO2

Demonstration projects high priority – learn by doing +
R&D to reduce costs

A realistic pan-European system needed

Mismatch of timescales – in the near term when work
must begin ETS, carbon price may not be high enough
to make CCS economically viable

The infrastructure will not be ready in time without
major governmental intervention through regulation
and/or incentives

Major world-wide market for early movers