ECCO

ECCO is an European research project on CO2 value chains. The project started in September 2008 and will run for three years. The final results of the project will be recommendations that will be valuable for industrial and governmental decision makers on how to establish CO2 value chains and how to build CCS infrastructure.

Introduction

ECCO is an European research project on CO₂ value chains. The project started in September 2008 and will run for three years.

The final results of the project will be recommendations that will be valuable for industrial and governmental decision makers for how to establish CO₂ value chains and how to build CCS infrastructure.

The project will identify how CO₂ sources can be linked with CO₂ storage sites. It will also investigate how to deploy early opportunities like CO₂ injection for enhanced oil and gas recovery (EOR and EGR).

Why is ECCO an important project?

Bellona has long advocated CCS as one of the main solutions to combat global warming. However, there are many barriers to remove before CCS can be a reality, and one of the main barriers is lack of a value chain for CCS. This means that there is no market for CO₂.

The European Commission shares Bellona's point of view of CCS as a solution to mitigate climate change, and the Commission is therefore supporting a new project with the objective of establishing recommendations for how to deploy a CO₂ value chain. The project is called ECCO - the acronym for European value Chain for CO₂.

Key project data

Bellona is one of 19 partners that will work together in the ECCO project where the aim is to facilitate robust decision making regarding early and future implementation of CO₂ value chains. The project will probably remove many barriers and pave the way for deployment of CCS in Europe.

The project has a time frame of three years, and the total budget is close to 5.4 million euros, of which about 3.9 million euros is to be funded by the European Commission under the seventh framework program for research and development (7FP). The project is coordinated by SINTEF, a Norwegian research institute.

CO₂ value chain

The project aims at identifying strategies for early deployment of CCS. As such, the project will analyze the potential of CO2 for enhanced oil and gas recovery (EOR and EGR). The production of oil and gas can be increased by injecting CO₂ in oil and gas reservoirs, and the sale of this increased oil or gas production will result in CO₂ as a commodity.

As such, there will be an economic incentive to establish EOR and EGR, which again can be the first phase of establishing the necessary infrastructure for wide deployment of CCS, meaning an infrastructure linking all large CO₂ point sources to suitable storage locations.

Bellona has worked on conceptual studies for CO₂ value chains earlier. Three years ago, Bellona published a report on a Norwegian CO₂ value chain and concluded that a Norwegian CO₂ value chain would be economically beneficial. Surprisingly, Norwegian authorities stopped work on creating the value chain last year, saying it would be too expensive – a conclusion that Bellona does not share.

Bellona still believe it is possible to establish an European CO₂ value chains, and by establishing the ECCO project it is clear that the European Commission shares this view.

CCS Recommendations

The European Commission is hoping that EOR and EGR will pave the way for a large infrastructure for CCS linking most of the CO₂ point sources in Europe with safe storage locations.

Last year, Bellona published a scientific paper concluding that CCS can reduce European CO₂ emissions by more than 50 percent by 2050. The ECCO project will give important tools for realizing this huge potential for CO₂ emission reductions.

The partners in the ECCO project will carry out cost calculation, analyze how to remove regulatory barriers, and identify necessary incentives in addition to research on CO₂ storage, EOR and EGR.

The final results of the project will be recommendations for how to deploy CCS in Europe and methodology for a CO₂ value chain assessment. Such recommendations will be highly appreciated by the European Commission which aims at making CCS commercially viable by 2020.

The partners in the ECCO project will establish a home site for the project in the spring 2009. All deliverables and results will be available at this site. The link to the ECCO web site will be given here as soon as the site is published.

ECCO partners

Participants in the ECCO project:

• SINTEF Energy Research (coordinator)
• SINTEF Petroleum Research
• StatoilHydro
• Vattenfall
• DONG Energy
• E.ON
• RWE
• TNO
• JRC
• IFP
• GEUS
• NTNU
• Progressive Energy
• University of Zagreb
• INA
• MOL
• Project Invest Energy
• Fortum
• The Bellona Foundation

See also

• News article from ECCO kick-off meeting at Bellona Web

External links

• ECCO home page