Demonstration programs

03/02-2009

Scientists and industry agree that the next logical step for further development of CCS technology is to build large scale demonstration plants.

The G8 leaders have suggested building 20 demonstration plants worldwide and the EU is planning to build 10-12 demonstration plants by 2015.

G8 plan for 20 demonstration plants

The governments of the eight nations Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, and USA meets regularly in so-called G8 meetings to discuss global politics.

In June 2008 they meet in Aomori, Japan, and one of the main items on the agenda was energy and climate issues. The joint statement from the meeting clearly defines CCS as an important tool to tackle global challenges of climate change and energy security. According to the statement it is recommended to build 20 large scale CCS demonstration projects globally to supporting technology development and cost reduction. It is also pointed out that the projects need to be launched by 2010 to ensure the beginning of broad deployment of CCS by 2020.

The G8 will cooperate with international financial institutions to ensure financially support for the demonstration projects. Actions will also be taken to accelerate large scale CCS deployment in not only developed, but also in developing countries.

The EU Demonstration Programme

When the European Parliament endorsed its Climate Package n December 2008 it marked an important milestone for CCS in the EU. The Climate Package paves way for CCS deployment in Europe as it allocates billions of euros for building CCS demonstration plants.

In the revised directive for the EU Emission trading scheme (ETS) it is agreed to set aside 300 million emission allowances for funding of clean energy demonstration projects. This will equal about €6-9 billion, depending on future price of emission allowances. It remains to be seen how this allocation of funding will be split by CCS projects and other clean energy technologies like renewable energy demonstration projects.

The CCS part of the EU Climate Package is to a large extent based on recommendations from the Technology Platform ZEP which has recommended that the EU build 10-12 demonstration projects for CCS by 2015. By doing so, it is believed that technological development will be accelerated and that the CCS cost will be significantly reduced.

ZEP has also established criteria for how to select the demonstration projects that should be given public funding. In general, the criteria recommend testing a broad range of technologies for capture, transport and storage of CO₂ to ensure that all options for CCS that are close to become commercially viable are further developed.

All the criteria for selecting the demonstration projects are available in the official ZEP report.

The European Commission (EC) has established a secretariat that will lead the process of establishing the CCS demonstration projects. The secretariat will give recommendations to the EC in the process of selecting the demonstration projects, and it will ensure knowledge transfer among all stakeholders.

The Australian global CCS Institute

Australia has allocated a budget of 100 million Australian dollars for a Global CCS Institute that will work actively to speed up the development of CCS technology. The Institute will aim to accelerate CCS projects through facilitating demonstration projects and identifying and supporting necessary research - including regulatory settings and regulatory frameworks.

The Australian CCS Institute could play an important role in making the G8 recommendation of 20 CCS demonstration projects worldwide a reality.

Initiatives worldwide

There are interesting initiatives for CCS demonstration projects all over the world, and only an overall description of a few of the initiatives is described above. Information about CCS demonstration projects is available from our interactive map, and a few of the industrial initiatives are described here.

External links

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