WRI Publications Feed: Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS)

FutureGen And The Department of Energy's Advanced Coal Programs

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400

TESTIMONY OF SARAH M. FORBES
SENIOR ASSOCIATE, WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE

HEARING BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SCEINCE AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: “FUTUREGEN AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S ADVANCED COAL PROGRAMS”

Good morning and thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am Sarah Forbes and I lead the CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) work at the World Resources Institute. The World Resources Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan environmental think tank that goes beyond research to provide practical solutions to the world’s most urgent environment and development challenges. We work in partnership with scientists, businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations in more than seventy countries to provide information, tools and analysis to address problems like climate change, and the degradation of ecosystems and their capacity to provide for human well-being.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has taken a lead in exploring the challenges, opportunities and state of technical knowledge in the field of carbon capture and storage. We convened a two year stakeholder process which resulted in the Guidelines for Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport, and Storage published in November 2008 which can serve as a benchmark for decision-makers to use in evaluating potential projects. In developing the Guidelines, WRI brought together a diverse group of more than 80 technical experts including government officials, NGOs, academics and businesses.

Coal use is responsible for over 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Without significant, deliberate action to reduce these emissions we cannot address climate change. Carbon capture and storage is one of a number of critical technologies coal-burning nations will need to consider and deploy in the coming decades. International collaboration will be essential to moving CCS technology to scale – reducing costs and securing a global response to the climate challenge. In the next five years, we must move from demonstration to deployment.

In this testimony, I will provide an update on some of the key international collaborations on CCS already underway, and offer some ideas for future direction. I would like to make three key points, each of which I will expand on below.

First, I will describe the urgent need for a global network of CCS demonstrations that includes joint technology development along with collaboration on resolving investment, regulatory, legal and social barriers to CCS deployment.

Second, I will talk specifically about collaboration on CCS with one country—China. I will describe the efforts many countries and businesses are taking to ensure that at least one of the global CCS demonstrations is in China.

Third, I will describe a few of the major international CCS collaborations that are underway and offer suggestions for how these efforts may best complement each other as the technology is demonstrated worldwide.

I will conclude by providing some concrete suggestions for near-term actions that can be taken to enhance collaborations with China and facilitate global deployment of CCS technology.

Develop a Global Network of CCS Demonstrations

In technology development there is a period known as the “valley of death” where a technology has been proven in the laboratory and at a small scale but has yet to move from a research effort to commercialization. CCS technology has progressed quickly from an idea to a key part in proposed climate change mitigation plans. This progression is partly thanks to the early successes seen in the pilot capture demonstrations and research and commercial projects where CO2 has been injected at rates up to a million tons per year. Moving the technology forward into commercialization will require integrated capture and storage demonstration at power-plant scale. A key finding of the Guidelines for Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport, and Storage was that even though additional research is needed in some areas, there is adequate technical understanding to safely conduct large-scale demonstrations. In fact, many of the remaining questions about CCS technology can only be answered by additional experience with the technology or policy interventions.

Most experts agree that we need between 15 and 20 demonstrations of differing capture and storage configurations globally. Last July, the G8 set a goal of 20 demonstrations announced by 2010. The U.S Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP), of which WRI is a member, further recommends building at least five projects of CCS enabled coal fueled facilities in the United States by 2015.

Achieving these goals in the right time frame is critical to deal with the looming climate challenge but at the same time will require significant investment. There is a need for establishing a clear and robust international financing mechanism to fund these projects globally. It will also require substantial (but not insurmountable) progress on addressing lingering regulatory, investment, legal, and social issues. The global development of environmental regulatory frameworks for CCS, is testament to our readiness to demonstrate the technology. 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, which included environmental regulations, was passed at the European Union level. Global progression towards a common understanding of how to safely implement the technology seems within reach.

This effort of building a global network of CCS demonstrations will require a significant investment and commitment of resources, along with coordination and support from senior government representatives. However, through strong international collaboration each country need not demonstrate the full suite of capture and storage options. For example, when the UK first announced their plans to move forward with a post-combustion CCS demonstration, it was described as being complimentary to the U.S. FutureGen project which was at that time planning to demonstrate at-scale capture with an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant. The collective group of global demonstrations should include the full suite of different capture configurations and test storage in a variety of geologic settings.

To address this need, Congress can commit funding for public-private partnership demonstration projects in the U.S. and formally participate in international demonstration efforts. CCS demonstrations will require billions in research funding with estimates at about $1-1.5 billion per project. Funding allocated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is important, but still falls short of what will be needed to commercialize CCS technology. A robust funding mechanism and clear plan for collaboration among demonstration projects is critical. One example of such a plan was recently approved by the European Union with funding for demonstrations coming from the proceeds the European Trading Scheme (ETS) and coordination among projects required. The global CCS demonstration network should include collaborative work on not only technology development, but also information-sharing on legal, social and regulatory issues.

Enhance Capacity for CCS Demonstration in China

According to the Energy Information Administration, China’s coal-related carbon dioxide emissions may grow to 51 percent of the world’s total by 2030. With 20 percent of the world’s population, China has 14 percent of the world’s coal reserves, but less than one percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves. While China is actively developing its non-carbon power sources─hydropower, nuclear, and newer alternative energies─rapid growth will still not be enough to replace coal as a core part of its expanding electricity infrastructure. Deployment of CCS in China may be the only way to globally make the needed reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

China is conducting research and quickly moving towards developing and demonstrating CCS technologies. In fact, the Chinese government was among the foreign governments who had pledged to commit funding for the original FutureGen project. Chinese companies and government institutions are undertaking a CCS research themselves and with a number of international partners. For example:

The Chinese power industry has several projects focusing on coal gasification. The largest, GreenGen, sponsored by China’s five largest power companies, will build a 200 MW integrated gasification combined cycle power plant in the city of Tianjin. Phases two and three of this project plan for CCS in nearby depleted oil fields, with injection planned before 2020. U.S. Peabody Energy is the one international equity partner in this effort.
China has two major efforts with European collaborators, the UK-China Near Zero Emissions Coal Project (NZEC) and the COoperation Action within CCS CHina-EU (COACH) Project. Both have done a great deal of preparatory and conceptual work on CCS.
China’s Huaneng group built a small carbon capture demonstration plant at Gaobeidian in Beijing with assistance from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO.) Discussions about a second phase are in process.
Both PetroChina, China’s largest oil company, and Shenhua, its largest coal company, have pilot CCS programs.

There is also a realization in China that robust policies and regulations will be needed to ensure that CCS projects are done responsibly. Tsinghua University has partnered with WRI to draft a set of Guidelines for Safe and Effective CCS in China. The effort is modeled after the stakeholder process led by WRI in the U.S. where a diverse set of stakeholders together developed a comprehensive set of guidelines for CCS projects. Development of a Guidelines document that is available in Chinese for potential project operators, financers, insurers, and legal experts to as a tool in understanding how to conduct CCS projects responsibly will facilitate demonstration of the technology in China. To enable this effort, Tsinghua University and WRI have assembled a steering committee that includes leading CCS experts from China and the United States. The Chinese members of the steering committee recently traveled to the United States and toured some of the leading CCS research institutions (including the injection well being drilled in Illinois). This effort is being funded with support from the U.S. Department of State under the Asia Pacific Partnership.

It would be to the benefit of both the U.S. and China if there were more direct collaboration on CCS demonstrations. Not only would working together solve technical problems faster, but given the rate at which Chinese companies are moving, the learning would hardly be one way. Jointly-funded and operated demonstrations, that include Government funding combined with private-sector investment is an essential next step. This will require a serious funding commitment as well as programs that facilitate information sharing on regulatory and policy issues and support for U.S. businesses working internationally.

Examples of programs that would help build increased capacity for CCS in China or other emerging economies include research exchange programs to bring students and faculty from China to see projects operating in the U.S. and study with leading researchers. An effective near-term approach would be to establish a research exchange program for visits to ongoing demonstrations in the U.S. including the Department of Energy’s Regional Sequestration Partnership Phase III projects. Exchange programs for environmental regulators and policy experts may also prove useful in resolving the legal, regulatory, and social challenges of deploying CCS technology. The Department of State in collaboration with the Department of Energy has implemented successful exchange programs in the past which could be replicated with a focus on CCS technology and policy. 3. Key International CCS Collaborations Underway

There are several high-level international CCS efforts underway, along with numerous individual projects like the WRI-Tsinghua University effort I just described. Each of these efforts can play an important role in the development of the technology. Key to successful integration of these efforts will be clarifying the niche each effort is designed to fill, eliminating redundancies, and designing a path for collaboration.

I would like to highlight three key CCS-specific initiatives already underway:

The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) is a Ministerial-level effort initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy. It has been in place since 2003 and has been influential in collaborations among governments.
Australia has recently initiated a Global CCS Institute, for which the Prime Minister has allocated $100M per year for the next 10 years. This institute is designed to focus specifically on collaboration surrounding demonstration projects.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) coordinates international research through the IEA GHG Program. IEA Secretariat is also developing an international roadmap for CCS at the request of the G-8. This roadmap is designed to answer the question of whether and how we can achieve the goal of 20 CCS demonstrations announced globally by 2010 and will provide recommendations for better coordination among international collaborations.

As the technology progresses from R&D towards demonstration, these international efforts can provide an avenue for information-sharing at various levels: the CSLF at the ministerial-level, the IEA among government energy departments, and the Global Institute among those running demonstration projects. It is time to evaluate the existing programs in the context of an emerging suite of global demonstration projects and to form formal partnerships with others perusing demonstrations (UK, EU, China, Canada, Australia). Congress might consider commissioning a formal report on international CCS efforts and use the results of it along with the IEA’s International CCS Roadmap (expected publication date October 2009) to clarify and formalize the role of the various international CCS organizations that have emerged. Additionally, although the U.S. Department of Energy’s Regional Partnership Program has been acknowledged as the “world’s most ambitious program” the work is largely unknown in the international community, in part because it is difficult for researchers to receive approval to travel internationally on their government grants. A scholarship program for U.S. researchers working on government-funded projects to attend international CCS meetings and present the results of their research may be useful in better communicating the results of leading U.S. research in this area. Such a merit-based program could be managed through the Department of Energy. Formal arrangements to partner with other countries on demonstrations must be established soon.

Conclusions

Unless we act now to aggressively begin to implement a global CCS demonstration program, we will lock in untold additional quantities of CO2 emissions from non-CCS, coal-fired power plants around the world. Globally, CCS R&D has progressed to the point of demonstration-readiness and there is a race underway to see who will build the world’s first large-scale integrated demonstration of capture, transport, and storage along with power production. The global nature of climate change and the urgent need to act now to avoid locking in a high emissions trajectory for the future necessitates increased and coordinated international collaborations. We need to specifically partner with emerging economies on demonstrating CCS technology, through joint public-private partnerships. In these international collaborations we must seek ways to build capacity and support efforts to develop global policies and environmental regulations that protect human health and ecosystems. This will include coordination and collaboration on demonstrations that begins in the planning stages along with projects that build capacity on regulatory and policy issues (like the WRI-Tsinghua APP project).

In my testimony, I have mentioned five specific actions to consider that will help facilitate international collaboration on CCS, which are summarized here:

Commit funding for demonstration projects in the U.S. and in China that are geared towards joint technology development; such projects should be public-private partnerships. The global network of demonstrations should include the full suite of capture technology approaches and test storage in a variety of geologic settings.
Develop a framework and funding for research exchange programs to bring researchers from other countries to see projects operating in the U.S. and study with leading researchers. The Department of State in collaboration with the Department of Energy has implemented successful exchange programs in the past which could be replicated with a focus on CCS technology and policy.
Increase bi-lateral efforts to facilitate capacity building and information sharing on regulatory and policy issues.
Establish formal partnerships with other countries developing CCS demonstration projects (UK, EU, China, and Australia) to facilitate information-sharing and avoid duplication among demonstration efforts. Also, commission a formal report on international CCS efforts and use the results of it and the IEA CCS Roadmap to clarify and formalize the role of the various international CCS organizations that have emerged.
Develop a scholarship program for U.S. researchers working on government-funded projects to attend international CCS meetings and present the results of their research. Such a merit-based program could be managed through the Department of Energy.

Guidelines for Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport, and Storage

Stephanie Hanson — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Guidelines Overview

CCS: The WRI Guidelines
Watch on Youtube

CCS is a broad term that encompasses a number of technologies that can be used to capture CO2 from point sources, such as power plants and other industrial facilities; compress it; transport it mainly by pipeline to suitable locations; and inject it into deep subsurface geological formations for indefinite isolation from the atmosphere. CCS is a critical option in the portfolio of solutions available to combat climate change, because it allows for significant reductions in CO2 emissions from fossil-based systems, enabling it to be used as a bridge to a sustainable energy future.

The starting point for the CCS Guidelines stakeholder discussions was that CCS will most likely be needed to achieve the magnitude of CO2 emissions reduction required to stabilize and reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

The goal of this effort was to develop a set of preliminary guidelines and recommendations for the deployment of CCS technologies in the United States. The CCS Guidelines are written for those who may be involved in decisions on a proposed project: the developers, regulators, financiers, insurers, project operators, and policymakers.

These Guidelines are intended to guide full-scale demonstration of and build public confidence in CCS technologies by informing how projects should be conducted.

The purpose of the Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) Guidelines is not to make a case for or against CCS, but rather to develop practical considerations for demonstrating and deploying CCS technologies.

Watch WRI Senior Associate Sarah Forbes discuss the CCS Guidelines in an interview with E&ETV.

Scenarios for stabilizing climate-forcing emissions suggest atmospheric CO2 stabilization can only be accomplished through the development and deployment of a robust portfolio of solutions, including significant increases in energy efficiency and conservation in the industrial, building, and transport sectors; increased reliance on renewable energy and potentially additional nuclear energy sources; and deployment of CCS.

These Guidelines represent current understanding of how to implement CCS technologies. Discussions of the Guidelines were predicated on the following principles:

Protect human health and safety.
Protect ecosystems.
Protect underground sources of drinking water and other natural resources.
Ensure market confidence in emission reductions through regulatory clarity and proper GHG accounting.
Facilitate cost-effective, timely deployment.

To develop the CCS Guidelines, the World Resources Institute (WRI) convened a diverse group of over 80 stakeholders, including representatives from academia, business, government, and environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

These Guidelines present recommendations and best practices for those involved in the development and implementation of CCS projects. The document also provides a comprehensive introductory reference for those new to CCS who seek to understand how to responsibly conduct projects.

A potential operator, financier, insurer, or regulator can use these Guidelines as a benchmark in evaluating potential project plans and as a reference on the current technical understanding of best practices for CCS, and a policymaker can use them to establish regulatory and investment frameworks that enable successful and responsible CCS deployments. It is important to note that these Guidelines are not intended to replace or provide the detailed technical knowledge that would be required to select the location for or to design and operate a CCS project. In fact, one of the findings derived from this process is that each CCS project will be unique, and a team of qualified experts will be needed to design and operate each project.

Homepage photo credit: Statoil.

Capturing King Coal: Deploying Carbon Capture and Storage Systems in the U.S. at Scale

Hiranya Fernando — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:44:32 -0400

Coal is a key fuel source for current and future electric power generation. Coal becomes even more critical when cost of electricity and security of supply issues are viewed in light of other fuel sources such as gas or uranium. Yet coal combustion produces about 1.9 billion tons of CO2 per year in the U.S., roughly equivalent to all CO2 emissions from U.S. transport per year. The burning of coal, with more CO2 emissions per unit of energy produced than any other fossil fuel, has signiﬁcant adverse climate change impacts.

One way to reduce carbon emissions from coal-ﬁred power is to capture and store it permanently underground, a process called carbon capture and storage (CCS), also called carbon sequestration. CCS has captured the attention of policymakers, power generators, and environmentalists because of its potential as a bridging technology that will permit the continued use of coal as a fuel source while not contributing to a further destabilization of the climate. A great deal of work is underway to develop and improve the technologies, legal frameworks, and policies required for wide-scale deployment of CCS systems.

The main reason for this interest is that several major world economies, including the U.S., China, and India depend heavily on coal as an energy source. Alternative means of moving to a zero-carbon power mix, including wind or solar (which are dispersed and have variable output) and nuclear power (which raises difficult questions of security and waste disposal) require wrenching changes to our energy systems. CCS apparently offers the prospect of staving off climate disaster while maintaining something near the status quo. Coal can remain central to the energy mix, and CCS makes this possible.

But does it? There is in fact considerable complexity involved in deploying a national CCS system at the scale necessary to achieve significant emissions reductions. Indeed, it amounts to no less fundamental a transformation of the country’s energy infrastructure than would a huge-scale adoption of wind energy, for instance. This report examines the challenges of this transformation under the four broad categories of technology, policy, legal and regulatory framework, and investment, and their implications for CCS as part of the solution to mitigate adverse climate change impacts.

Liability and Financial Responsibility Frameworks for Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:33:33 -0500

Building Public Acceptability for Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:53:27 -0500

Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS) could prove an essential component of the effort to address the climate change challenge. While demonstration projects across the globe can show that CCS risks are low, public perception of such risks will be critical in infl uencing how policy and regulatory frameworks develop around the technology. This brief outlines the risks associated with CCS, describes how the public views the technology, and explains what can be done to develop long-term public support. We conclude that the best way to build public acceptance for CCS is by developing large, well-managed demonstration projects; promoting robust regulations and industry standards; and creating more interactive public outreach and education programs.

Opportunities and Challenges for Carbon Capture and Sequestration

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Carbon capture and Sequestration (CCS) could become an important option to limit carbon dioxide emissions that are now causing global climate change. Interest in CCS has grown in North America, Europe, and Asia over the past 5 years. Selected challenges facing the technology include: developing a policy driver to incentivize deployment; defi ning a fl exible and adaptable regulatory framework; and funding large-scale demonstration projects to resolve technical and integration uncertainties as well as reduce high costs. Addressing these three challenges will help solve a fourth: public acceptability. Debate over the timing of CCS deployment is likely to continue, but it is clear that this climate mitigation option is critical to eventual stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

The Future of Coal under Carbon Cap and Trade: Submission to Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

admin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Introduction

Global climate change is the greatest environmental challenge we face. We have at most a few decades to make the necessary investments to prevent the most serious impacts of climate change. Future generations will judge us based on the investments we are considering now.

In its February 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that global emissions must peak no later than 2015 if we are to hold average global temperature increases to 2.4°C (4.3°F) or less. Moving to an emissions pathway that will hold temperature increases and other impacts to a minimum will require a colossal effort. There is no time to lose given the long lag in research and development cycles, and energy-intensive infrastructure and product turnover.

Fundamentally altering the world’s energy system is unlikely to occur within this timeframe. It is thus imperative to find means to reduce the footprint of the existing system – most particularly, of coal, which is the most greenhouse gas intensive of the fossil fuels driving climate change. It is in this context that carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS) becomes one of the most critical technologies in the menu of choices we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It is the only option that provides a potentially near-term solution to rapidly expanding coal use here, in China and around the world. CCS must play the critical role of curbing growth in emissions from coal until other alternatives are ready.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy have enormously important roles to play in helping countries meet their development goals more cleanly, but together are unlikely to be able deliver the quantity of energy needed to offset sufficient coal use in the near future. Some predict nuclear power could enter a renaissance, but it seems likely its contribution will be limited due to high costs and public concern. We have been reminded quite painfully over the past few years that oil and natural gas supplies are increasingly concentrated in a few, often unstable countries and are unlikely to substitute for coal on sufficient scale. Other low-carbon energy options are still more speculative. Given that coal fuels over half of this country’s electricity production and almost 80 percent in China, while all low-carbon options need to be deployed to prevent the more serious impacts of climate change, a solution must be developed for the coal that will undoubtedly be consumed over the next few decades.

Unfortunately, we are not yet in a position to widely install CCS technology. It is currently expensive in all but relatively niche applications. The question of how the public will react to CCS is largely untested. And the issue of whether we can successfully scale up its use beyond the relatively small applications we have today is still hard to assess. But while CCS is not a panacea to the climate challenges we face, it is currently the only tool that allows us to deal with emissions from coal. Several steps will be critical, and we believe should be adopted to promote the rapid penetration of this technology.

Public funding to support energy research, development and demonstration (RD&D) has declined notably in most industrialized countries over the past few decades. WRI believes that greater spending on climate RD&D is called for in general, and more on CCS specifically. The knowledge gleaned from this RD&D will help us understand more quickly what role CCS will play in the climate solution.

A carbon cap and trade regime will be a critical first step in driving development and deployment of CCS technologies at the scale necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. By creating a price for carbon, a cap and trade regime will provide incentives for industry to invest in low carbon technologies. It will also help the Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and other key institutions prioritize their work plans more effectively. However, even the most robust legislative proposals for cap and trade offered today will not be sufficient to drive large-scale investment in CCS over the first decade or so. Estimated carbon prices under such proposals are too low to offset the high capture costs that exist today.

Other policy tools are available and should be adopted to speed CCS deployment. These include special incentives for rapid technology development and deployment, and establishing clear siting regulations Barriers to widespread deployment of CCS, including lack of public understanding and acceptance, the need for accelerated RD&D, and resolution of legal and regulatory issues, must also be addressed.