Industrial initiatives

Companies see CCS as a big future market, and a number of stakeholders are already competing to take the technological lead. However, the costs and financial risks related to CCS make them reluctant to take the next step and actually build a large-scale CCS plant.

Large scale projects in operation

Many CCS projects are underway across the world. However, most of them are on the research and small-scale pilot scale. The only full-scale plants in operation involve the capture of CO₂ from natural gas, which is necessary for selling the natural gas. The political support for wide-spread deployment of CCS is nonetheless growing across the world, meaning that we are likely to see numerous large-scale demonstration plants realised during the coming decade. From 2020 onwards, increased confidence in the technology combined with appropriate financial incentives and regulations will mean that there will be no reason to build large fossil fuel power plants and industrial plants that are not equipped with CCS.

Today only the following commercial CCS projects demonstrate the full-scale capture and storage of CO₂:

• Sleipner
• In Salah
• Weyburn
• Snøhvit

Several commercial projects have been announced and several CCS projects including the capture, transport and storage of CO₂ should be in operation between 2012 and 2015.

The general opinion on CCS from industrial stakeholders is positive; they regard CCS as a very good strategy to reduce CO₂ emissions from factories and coal power plants because it allows them to continue using fossil fuel. However, industry is very reluctant to pay for the first large-scale CCS plants, and they are asking for substantial public funding for building the first CCS demonstration plants.

But industry is paying its share. Many companies have invested a lot in research activities, and some companies have even built pilot plants for CO₂ capture.

Industry sees CCS as a big future market, and a number of stakeholders are already competing to take the technological lead. However, the costs and risks related to CCS make them reluctant to take the next step and actually build a large.scale CCS plant.

Check out our interactive map showing the most interesting current CCS projects, or read about some of the planned CCS demonstration projects below

Mongstad CCS project

The Mongstad full-scale project is likely to become one of the world’s first integrated, large-scale CCS projects in operation. The StatoilHydro-owned Mongstad refinery is already one of Norway’s largest sources of CO₂, with 1,3 million tons of CO₂ emitted per year. In 2010, a new gas-fired cogeneration plant will be put in operation to supply heat and power to the refinery, increasing total emissions to about 2,6 million tons. This accounts for about 5 percent of Norway’s total CO₂ emissions.

The Mongstad refinery. Photo: StatoilHydro Bellona

In an effort to curb emissions and contribute to the development of CCS technology, the Norwegian government has signed an agreement with StatoilHydro to establish a full-scale CO₂ capture and storage of CO₂. The project will be done in two stages, the first operational from 2010, the second from 2014.

Phase 1 - European CO₂ Technology Centre Mongstad

The first phase, known as the European CO₂ Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), is organized as a partnership between StatoilHydro, Gassnova (the Norwegian Government’s CCS organization), Shell, Dong Energy and Vattenfall. Two different capture technologies, amine and chilled ammonia absorption, will be tested from flue gas sources with respectively low and high CO₂ contents. About 100 000 tons of CO₂ will be captured annually from 2010 for a period of 4 years.

The ambitions for TCM as a testing arena are high. Especially, there are expectations that the centre will provide various learning effects regarding technology scale-up, operational conditions, environmental consequences and the testing of sub-contractor deliverables. One of the goals of testing amines is to qualify the technology for the large-scale treatment of exhaust gases, and at the same time develop cost-efficient technologies, stated Bjørn-Erik Haugan, the managing director of Gassnova, on behalf of the TCM partnership in a press-release (www.gassnova.no)

Phase 1 does not include transportation and storage of the captured CO₂.

Phase 2 – Full scale CCS value chain

Based on experiences gained in Phase 1, the plan is to establish a full-scale CCS value chain, including capture of 2-2.5 million tons CO₂ from the Mongstad facilities, pipeline transportation, and storage in a deep saline aquifer about xx km offshore. Establishing a full-scale CCS value chain was a central premise for the government to allow the building of the gas-fired cogeneration plant.

Capture

The Mongstad facilities produce about 2.5 million tons of CO₂ from 13 sources per year. 80 percent of these emissions stem from the gas-fired cogeneration plant (under commissioning) and the refinery’s cracker, with 1.3 and 0.8 million tons CO₂ per year respectively. According to the agreement with the Norwegian government, StatoilHydro is responsible for realizing the capture facilities. StatoilHydro’s master plan for capture at Mongstad is available here (pdf).

Since the two CO₂ sources are quite different in terms of CO₂ concentration, two separate capture plants will be built for the cracker and the cogeneration plant. For both sources, the CO₂ capture concept will be post-combustion capture. The CO₂ separation technology is not selected yet, and will be based on lessons learned from the first phase, TCM. The most probable technology is absorption by means of amines or carbonates (chilled ammonia). The two capture plants will use the same support utilities, including the absorption fluid regeneration tower.

Transportation and storage

The captured CO₂ will be stored in a deep saline aquifer under the North Sea. Gassnova, the Norwegian government’s CCS organization, is responsible for planning and developing the transportation and storage system. In addition to Mongstad, the system will also handle about 1.2 million tons CO₂ from the Kårstø gas power plant.

Three potential storage sites are under surveying, two in the Utsira formation, and one in the Johansen formation. The Utsira formation has already been in use for CO₂-sequestration since 1996, when StatoilHydro (then Statoil) began injection of about 1 million tons/year CO₂ captured from the natural gas produced from the Sleipner field. The Johansen formation is a deep saline aquifer similar in structure to the Utsira formation. Read more about the Sleipner CO₂ storage project here

ZeroGen

ZeroGen Pty Ltd, an Australian energy company, is developing two coal power plants with CO₂ capture and storage using the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) concept. The project is planned in two stages, where the first aims to demonstrate the technology and provide learning for the second, full-scale stage. Stage one is planned to be in operation from 2012, stage two from 2017.

Proposed ZeroGen power station site (artists impression). Source: Gladstone Centre for coal

Power plant technology and CO₂ capture

The standard technology for converting coal to power (and heat) in power plants is the Pulvierized Coal technology, which involves pulverizing coal to a produce a fine dust which is then burned to produce steam at high temperature and pressure. The steam is then allowed to expand through a steam turbine, making the turbine rotate to generate electric power. The CO₂ capture concepts suitable for this kind of power plant are oxyfuel combustion (burning with pure oxygen) and post-combustion capture (capture of CO₂ after burning the fuel). Vattenfall’s Nordjylland power station is an example of post-combustion capture at a Pulverized Coal power plant.

The Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant concept is a new technology that promises higher efficiency in converting the chemical energy in the fuel (coal, biomass) to electric energy while at the same time reducing emissions of particles and toxic gases to air. In brief, the IGCC process first converts the solid fuel (coal, biomass) to a gas mixture (synthesis gas) consisting of hydrogen and CO₂. At relatively high pressure (15 to 20 bar) and a high concentration of CO₂ (around 35 to 45 percent), the gas mixture is ideal for CO₂ separation. CO₂ is separated from the gas mixture, and the remaining hydrogen is then burned to produce electricity and heat. The hydrogen can also be used as an energy carrier for other energy purposes, such as driving hydrogen vehicles or industrial processes. Since this CO₂ separation happens before combustion, this concept for CO₂ capture is termed pre-combustion capture.

Stage 1 – demonstration-scale IGCC power plant with CCS

The first stage of the ZeroGen project involves building a 120 MW (gross) power plant, with capture of up to 75 percent of the produced CO₂. The CO₂ separation technology is expected to be an amine absorption system. The plant is being built near Rockhampton in Central Queensland, Australia. Part of the captured CO₂ will be transported in road tankers for about 220 km to be injected in deep underground reservoirs in the Northern Denison Through.

Stage 1 will be operational from 2012.

Stage 2 – commercial scale IGCC power plant with CCS

Based on experience gained in stage 1, the project will build a 400 MW (gross) IGCC power plant with CCS. The exact location is still to be chosen, but it is decided that it will be in Queensland. At stage 2, 90 percent of the produced CO₂ will be captured for full sequestration, probably in the same location as stage 1. A pipeline is expected for transportation of CO₂ in stage 2.

Stage 2 will be operational from 2017.

More information about the ZeroGen project is available here.

Nordjylland CCS project

The Sweden-based energy company Vattenfall is planning to have a full-scale CCS demonstration project in operation in Aalborg in Northern Denmark by the end of 2013, making it one of the first full-scale plants in operation globally. Vattenfall launched the project February 5^th, 2008, and has since undertaken a series of geological surveys to identify a suitable site for storage in the power plants vicinity. Investment decision is planned for 2010. Vattenfall hopes to qualify this project as one of the 10-12 demonstration plants that the EU has vowed to help finance.

The Nordjylland power station. Photo: Vattenfall

Capture

The Nordjylland power station is, according to Vattenfall, currently the most efficient coal power plant in the world, converting 47% of the coal’s chemical energy to useful electric energy (in addition, some of the waste heat is used for district heating). After CO₂ capture and compression facilities are installed, the plant will at 38% still have higher efficiency than the average for existing European coal power plants.

Since the plant is already in operation, CO₂ capture equipment will be retrofitted. For retrofit, post-combustion is usually considered the most feasible option, although oxyfueling is also possible. To minimize technical risk while at the same time being able to make an investment decision in 2010, it can be expected that the developers will opt for a post-combustion solution, and absorption by means of amines for CO₂ separation.

The capture rate will be 1.8 million tons CO₂ per year. Assuming a post-combustion amine absorption capture solution, the plant’s net power output will decrease from 376 to 305 MW. The loss of energy, 71 MW (19% of the plant’s total), is used to drive the CO₂ capture process.

Transportation and storage

Unlike the Mongstad CCS project, for which transportation and storage solutions are identified and developed by an external part (Gassnova), Vattenfall is developing the transportation and storage solution in-house.

Northern Jylland, the region in which the plant is situated, was geologically surveyed in the 1950’s and 70’s as part of the search for oil and gas resources. Based on maps from these surveys, some promising sites in the near vicinity of the power plant were identified. These sites are deep saline aquifers at about 2000 meters depth, with several layers of thick (100s of meters) clay stone cap-rock above.

In October, 2-dimensional seismic studies of the most promising of these sites was finished. Vattenfall reports that these surveys were positive, and confirmed the expected formation at the expected depth. The next step is to carry out a 3-dimensional seismic survey on the area identified as the most promising, in May-July 2009. This survey will give a spatial image of the geological formations. This makes it possible to select suitable places for injection wells, and in greater detail predict how the injected CO₂ will behave in the formation. Appraisal drilling will also be carried out in 2009 to verify findings from the seismic surveys.

Transportation to the site, some 30 kilometers from the power plant, is planned through pipeline. Vattenfall estimates that the selected storage site has capacity to store the CO₂ produced at the Nordjylland plant for more than 30 years.

Stakeholder involvement

There is no reason to expect the storage of CO₂ in the selected site to be unsafe for human beings and the natural environment. Both general knowledge of the behavior of CO₂ in saline aquifers and site-specific data is promising, and meticulous surveying before injection and continuous monitoring during and after injection will ensure safe operations. The feeling of safety is however a subjective experience, so it is important to make sure to engage in an open, 2-way dialogue with anyone who takes interest in the project.

Vattenfall has done so by establishing a local monitoring group which it uses to inform stakeholders about the project, and receive feedback. It has also established a plot-owner committee to provide advice about how to minimize the impact of the seismic surveys on local agricultural production and environment.

More information about the Nordjylland power station and Vattenfall’s other CCS projects is available here.

External links

Mongstad CCS project
Read more (pdf)

ZeroGen
Read more

Nordjylland CCS project
Read more

Sleipner CO₂ storage project
Read more

In Salah
Read more

Weyburn
Read more

Vattenfall - CO₂ capture pilot
Vattenfall has built a 30 MW Oxyfuel CO₂ capture pilot plant, an investment of EUR 50 million. The pilot plant is located near the existing coal power plant in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany.
Read more at the Vattenfall home page

Aker Clean Carbon - CO₂ capture pilot
Aker Clean Carbon has built a small transportable Post-combustion CO₂ capture pilot. The pilot plant is a first step in a strategy to develop full-scale CO₂ capture plants.
Read more at the Aker Clean Carbon home page

Sargas - CO₂ capture pilot
Sargas has built a CO₂ capture pilot in Stockholm. Test results indicate that the technology works as planned.
Read more at the Sargas home page.