Carbon Capture and Storage Still a Pipe Dream?

The mythical elixir peddled by the coal industry to solve our climate woes, carbon capture and storage (CCS), may yet become a reality.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a report today saying that a massive CCS build-out will be necessary to keep carbon dioxide emissions in check, and it will have to happen quickly.

The next decade will be the "make a break" period, the IEA writes. To get CCS technology functional on a commercial scale, bring the costs down and put the technology on course to make a dent in global emissions, the report calls for 100 CCS projects globally by 2020 and more than 3,000 by 2050.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is also urging energy ministers around the world to accelerate their investment in CCS development. In a letter yesterday, he said the U.S. is on board and expects to have 10 demonstration CCS plants online by 2016.

"I believe we must make it our goal to advance carbon capture and storage technology to the point where widespread, affordable deployment can begin in eight to 10 years," Chu wrote.

"Success is within reach, but not guaranteed. it will not come easily. It will require an aggressive global effort, harnessing the scientific talent and resources of governments as well as industry."

None of this will be cheap, of course. Only four fully integrated, commercial-scale plants are operating today, and there are still big questions about safety.

Costs Run into the Trillions

CCS has been hyped as the future of coal for several years, but until recently it seemed like a distant prospect.

The Bush administration pulled the plug on what would have been its star demonstration project, FutureGen, after the estimated price for the CCS-equipped power plant shot up by 40 percent. This year, Chu revived the project, though the DOE still wants to see more corporate investment to pull it off.

The Energy Department has $1.4 billion to allocate for such projects from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Chu announced the first DOE grants for CCS projects last month – $21.6 million for 12 projects. The department also awarded $62 million to geologic studies of potentially suitable CCS sites and sequestration training programs.

But that U.S. investment is still just a drop in the bucket. The IEA estimates that the cost of a global CCS build-out would run $3.5 billion to $4 billion every year from 2010 to 2020 for work in developed countries, plus $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion in financing for CCS projects in developing countries. By 2050, the IEA sees the annual cost of CCS topping $350 billion.

According to the IEA, that level of investment is necessary for CCS to contribute just one-fifth of the needed emissions reductions to stabilize CO2 levels in the most cost-effective way — renewable energy, nuclear power, and the near-decarbonization of fossil fuel-based power generation will still be necessary for the rest.

Questions of Safety & Oversight

While CCS appears to be gaining political momentum, some major hurdles still must be addressed, and the question of safety tops the list.

The IEA report runs down a partial list of the unknowns:

"To date there has been very little site-specific storage exploration undertaken, and there is clear need for both regional and site-specific exploration to establish viable storage resources. Additional needs include:

* improved CO2 seismic modeling and monitoring techniques to enhance the ability to predict the fate of CO2 in the subsurface and verify its location;

* greater knowledge about understanding of leakage, including detection, rectifying and accounting;

* a better understanding of the impacts of CO2 storage on the subsurface, including on brine displacement;

Attachment	Size
IEA-CCS Roadmap.pdf	3.87 MB
DOE Letter-CCS.pdf	232.31 KB

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page »