The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.
I am so appreciative of receiving the Greenman Award (even though I am the first Greenwoman). There are so many people who are deserving of this honor. CCS has advanced so rapidly over the past ten years. It is truly remarkable, but entirely dependent on the hard work and dedication of so many people.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with outstanding scientists and engineers from around the world. The IPCC Special Report on CO2 Capture and Storage brought many of us together, not that we agreed on everything, but this accelerated the pace of building a worldwide community of researchers interested in CCS.
We also owe a great deal to the pioneers who started the Sleipner Saline Aquifer CO2 Storage Project. Operating for nearly 16 years, this project has provided a wealth of data and insights. The seismic data and interpretations have taught us so much about the behavior of CO2 in the subsurface.
The IEA Greenhouse Gas Programme has also been crucial for the development of CCS. I attended my first IEAGHG conference in Interlaken, Switzerland in 1998, and have been to everyone since then. The IEAGHG has contributed so much, from the conferences, to the networks, and now a high impact journal that publishes leading research articles. So, thank you very much for this wonderful award. It made my year!
Now all we need to do it get CCS implemented in a couple hundred projects. Then, we will all know we have succeeded.
I will be really proud to be a small part of that.
Blogged by Sally Benson,
2012 Greenman Award Recipient
Some comments from Statoil – one of the Conference Silver Sponsors
Overview:
Some statements from selected Keynote Plenary Speakers:
Some other general observations from the conference as a whole, included:
Blogged by Philip Ringrose,
on behalf of the Statoil GHGT-11 participants
The US has been a strong supporter of the GHGT series because it is THE event where one can get a reliable world view of the status of carbon capture and storage technology. The IEAGHG realized from the beginning that combining top notch venues with a thoughtful program was key to ensuring the best and brightest in the CCS universe would be there. This, coupled with the extraordinary commitment of the host countries and increasing interest in CCS resulted in attendance reaching almost 1600 in 2010 – three times the 1998 attendance.
It is especially interesting when an area starts to get significantly more attention in presentations and panel discussions than has been the case previously. For example, much of the past attention has been on CCS for coal-fueled power plants without consideration of the operating environment. At GHGT-11, however, researchers began to explore how such a plant might be affected by other fuels in the mix. A number of talks focused on flexible operation of CCS, particularly in European countries anticipating a high penetration of renewables. Presentations included temporary options such as bypassing the CO2 capture unit, turning off CO2 regeneration and storing the rich solvent for later CO2 recovery, and producing alternative products (e.g. liquid fuels) when electricity demand falls.
Another fuel getting renewed attention is natural gas. A plenary talk looked at the international implications of shale gas, and there were papers exploring alternative gas/CCS configurations and cost.
An overall impression of GHGT-11 is that while the march toward CCS commercialization appears to have slowed down in many countries, the R&D community continues to thrive and important progress is being made.
Blogged by Jay Braitsch,
Senior Advisor, Office of Fossil Energy, US DOE
I was glad to attend GHGT-11 in Kyoto. I came with two of my colleagues, Sean McCoy and Ellina Levina, both great experts. We were not able to travel with the whole team, but everybody in our team contributed to the various talks and papers – I want to acknowledge them all. Thanks colleagues!! Many thanks also to IEAGHG and RITE once more for giving such prominence for the IEA in the conference programme.
The venue for the event was inspiring: after all, the week was spent in the same place where the Kyoto Protocol was once signed. I guess there’s been quite some progress in awareness of climate change since. But the true global actions are still somewhat off.
It was encouraging to see the amount of research that is going on in various aspects of CCS, by industries, universities and research institutes large and small. All the talks on post- and pre-combustion, oxy-firing, novel approaches, various aspects of storage and transport etc. give an idea that countries, governments and industries have not given up on CCS, quite the opposite. As the IEA keeps saying, based on extensive energy modelling: we still need CCS, perhaps more than ever. But a sense of urgency in starting deployment is clearly lacking at the moment, and has been for a couple of years now. It reflects the economic crisis situation in many parts of the world, and the general lack of enthusiasm in driving forward strong policy on climate change. And as CCS is (apart from some areas of CO2 utilisation) totally dependent on climate policy, this really is felt at the moment. As I hope we highlighted in the plenary, CCS really needs strong policy, probably more than any other low-carbon energy at the moment. So I would reiterate that this community has not only an opportunity, but also a responsibility to deliver a balanced message on CCS: both its pros and cons and especially why we such strong policies to drive it.
But, what is important is the knowledge that we have the technology and we know it works. Hundreds of papers and posters gave, once more, lots of evidence that we really are able to capture, transport and store CO2 and do it safely. I came back to Paris with lots of new knowledge on technology and projects, and with the knowledge that the CCS community is alive and thriving, even if the implementation of large-scale projects is currently slow. But loads of good research is being done, and this is critically important: we need to build knowledge and capacity to be ready when deployment really starts to take off. It was great to see many new young faces in the crowds!
I know the GHGT series has profiled itself as a technical conference over the years, and it does that job really well. In addition, the plenary sessions and some panel talks bring a policy angle to all the parallel technical streams. I feel that many aspects from the technical sessions could be drawn into the policy sphere more efficiently. So my suggestion for GHGT-12 in Austin would be to encourage some more content (=papers) in policy design issues. What are the good policies that will help drive CCS projects to markets? How could policy-makers make the best use of them? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we should start changing the “tone and feel” of the series too much at all. But perhaps a touch more policy content could be warranted.
And lastly, IEAGHG has to be commended for having been such a great custodian of the GHGT series. See you at GHGT-12.
PS. Went totally mad with the camera: the autumn leaves’ season in Kyoto is something that everyone should see once in their lifetime!
Blogged by Juho Lipponen,
Head of CCS Unit, IEA
Before GHGT-11, Clare Lehane of Elsevier and I had discussed marketing materials for the IJGGC at GHGT-11. The tee shirt I thought was a great idea, and of course only my editorial colleague Jim Dooley could have put the said tee shirt on and visited the Wiley stand to put his card in to win and iPad. Will he win? Only time will tell but I wouldn’t hold n my breath Jim. However when I visited our joint stand on day 1 I was told the marketing merchandise was going well and was surprised to find not only the tee shirts on offer but Lego type USB miniatures of (supposedly) myself were going really well.
Most of that same day I walked around the conference meeting old friends, many of whom (like the Weyburn boys, Ben Rostron in particular) took pleasure in ripping of my USB head and like some voodoo doll were expecting the result to be the infliction of pain to my person. I never thought at the time to mimic the pain to any such ‘friend’ at the conference; that would have surprised somebody!
On the following days the same pleasure seemed to be still gripping people i.e. demonstrating the ease in which my head could be extracted from my body (and now that i have returned to the office, i see some of my staff doing the same, but they also seem to have removed arms and legs!) I also noted many decapitated little Me’s pushed unceremoniously into the USB drives of computers.
I was gratified to hear that my USB had sold out before the tee shirts, so thanks Clare for making so many people at GHGT-11 amused at my expense and pulling off a marketing coup for the journal at the same time! Despite this I still hold the Journal dear as well as IEAGHG’s strong relationship with Elsevier, and I look forward to seeing the conference proceedings published in Energy Proceedia.
Also a final plug if any one wants to submit a paper based on their work presented at GHGT-11 to IJGGC, as Editor in Chief I will be very happy to receive them. Remember our I.F. is now 5.11!!!
Finally I am not sure if I should be looking forward to, or be wary of the Journal marketing material for GHGT-12… only time will tell!
Blogged by John Gale,
General Manager IEAGHG &
Editor-in-Chief, IJGGC
Some more news from COP-18… Update 30th November 2012.
CCS CDM: Two sets of negotiating meetings have taken place on the transboundary projects and Global Reserve of CERs issue; the second of these concluded yesterday. Text was agreed that consideration of both is to be postponed until SBSTA-45 (in 2016) to allow time to learn from CCS projects. This text will now go to SBSTA and then CMP for approval. Whilst this isn’t a bad result in itself for the time-being (very few wanted the Global Reserve and there were good arguments against it) it isn’t as good as the initial version proposed by the Chairs which would have removed the Global Reserve permanently, recognising the adequacy provided by the existing modalities and procedures (also described as “providing robust environmental protection” by many here).
Side-events: The UNFCCC Side-event of CCSA/University of Texas/IEAGHG on CCS Education on Tuesday went well, was well attended (the most attendees of any CCS event here so far) and with a high level of interest. IEAGHG presented on the Summer School Series. At the booths, IEAGHG publications have been in high demand and almost exhausted whilst still in the first week. Next week, at a Bellona event on “The necessity of CCS – Looking beyond fossil power” on Monday 3rd Dec (09:30-11:00), IEAGHG will present on the Iron and Steel Industry work.
CCS project survey: Separately, the UNFCCC Secretariat would like to assess the level of interest and potential for CCS CDM projects, and so are undertaking a survey, details and links below, please respond by 28 December if you are interested.
The UNFCCC secretariat is undertaking work to estimate the number of methodological and project registration requests related to CCS CDM project activities that might be submitted in 2013 and beyond. In this regard the secretariat has prepared a survey and kindly requests that you share this survey with your membership so that potential project participants and developers have an opportunity to provide the secretariat with relevant information.
The survey is open until 28 December 2012.
The link to the survey is https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CCS_Survey_PP.
Blogged by IEAGHG
The venue of the next conference.
Technically it is a secret, not to be revealed until the closing session… but invariably too many people know and are involved before this stage to keep the secret. This time was no different… during the poster session, 8 or 9 people came up to me to talk about the next venue, correctly naming not just the country, state, and city, but the venue itself!
The following is a short blog from Gary Rochelle, Co-Chair of the GHGT-12 Steering Committee, and the Carol and Henry Groppe Professor of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.
From my narrow viewpoint, GHGT-11 was the best technical conference ever. There were 11 information packed sessions on just amine scrubbing for capture, so my view of the rest of GHGT was limited to the excellent Plenary sessions and to my discussions with other researchers over lunch and dinner. Even with somewhat fewer participants than GHGT-10, there were more than enough posters to keep me totally occupied. The opportunities for networking with my colleagues from Asia, Australia, and Europe further reinforced the value of this experience.
I brought 14 of my graduate students with me from Austin. Eight had never been to a GHGT meeting and found this one to be especially helpful in understanding their work and how it relates to the work of others.
We are excited to host GHGT-12 in Austin. Our venue at the Austin Convention Center will be modern and spacious with meeting rooms for 10 or more parallel sessions if needed. We are planning for 1800 participants, but will be able to accommodate many more. We have a great networking opportunity planned for the dinner under the stars in the Texas Hill Country.
By 2014 we should have several U.S. and International demonstrations of CCS that can be showcased at GHGT-12. The University of Texas itself has major activities on amine scrubbing, enhanced oil recovery, and CO2 storage that will be presented in full. Also expect to present in full other activities supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. And of course we expect full participation of the international research community on CCS, so GHGT-12 will be the best yet.
The invitation video will be available to view shortly, watch this space for a link!
Blogged by Gary Rochelle, and Toby Aiken (your GHGT-11 Blogger)
Sometime before GHGT-11, I directed you to a blog by Sam Pickard, a researcher from the University of Leeds in the UK, who was travelling to GHGT-11 overland to assess the potential of low carbon transport options.
I asked Sam what his motives for this experiment were:
Although as engineers and scientists we often focus on the technological changes that need to occur if we are to substantially reduce global GHG emissions and our resource consumption we often overlook the behavioural changes that are equally (some may say more) necessary too. In light of this, and the well-established damaging impacts of flying, I decided to start thinking about whether I could travel to GHGT in a way that could be more sustainable. The problem was, I couldn’t find any data on how the impact of such a venture could be compared to the status quo. So, I thought I would try and find out.
Do you feel that once the calculations have been done it will prove more carbon efficient?
I don’t want to pre-judge the results and because I am also including my personal footprint I think it is going to be a pretty involved calculation to actually quantify the impact of either of the options. That said, a back of the envelope calculation estimates that 2 UK – Far East return flights (I attended WRF12 in Beijing shortly before GHGT) would emit about 4 tonnes of CO2 and if you wanted to take into account the true radiative forcing due to the emissions being at high altitudes, the equivalence is somewhere around 7 t-CO2 which is about half of the average UK persons annual footprint – so it is a quite a big target to aim at.
Perhaps the most important aspect of looking at the slower system though is that it offers the greatest opportunity for improvement. So, even if it turns out travel by train with a little bit of boat is currently worse for the environment, through things like increasing low-carbon electrification present the potential for huge cuts in the future impacts but sadly such opportunities are not so easily realisable in the aviation industry.
Assuming it is, and you could afford the time again, would you repeat the process for a similar distance?
Part of the reason I’m doing the trip is to highlight that a different way of doing things is possible, even if to get there requires some extra effort. I realise I’m lucky to be in a position that means I can take my work away with me for a substantial amount of time, but if such a situation arose again in the future and I could justify the time then I’d be happy to do it all over again. Maybe next time I’ll avoid some of the minor issues I ran into too!
So what are your thoughts on the conference?
I’ve really enjoyed GHGT-11. To be honest, having taken so long to get here I’ve felt like it had to live up to expectations and I had to make sure it was worthwhile and it certainly was. It’s great to see the variety of research on display and the size of the conference at first made me think I’d never have a chance to speak to all the world leading experts I was hoping to get the ear of at some point. However, that really hasn’t happened. Through the student mentoring programme I was quickly introduced to some of the high flyers and that gave me the confidence to approach others during the conference. I’ve seen some highly engaging talks and some provocative panel discussions and through talking to people over coffee or at the poster sessions I’ve really got a better grasp of the breadth of knowledge CCS has achieved and the issues CCS faces as the industry moves forward.
And what stand-out messages have you taken from the sessions?
Stand out messages: it’s amazing how many talented people are working in this area and yet the industry is still stalling. There is a real need to secure backing from the non-CCS community (governments, communities and markets in particular) if we are to react in time to avoid dangerous climate change.
The organisation has been extremely slick and the conference has run like clockwork, the only things I would say though, more veggie food options and more coffee availability next time please (hoping I get to come to GHGT-12)!
For more information on Sam’s travels, and his journey and experiences, check out his blog at: http://lowco2motives.wordpress.com/
Your GHGT-11 Blogger,
Toby Aiken
Just a short post, and not necessarily related to last week’s conference, but I saw this little fact, and thought I would share it with you. A FaceBook Scientific Interest page recently posted this, so all credit goes to them, but I thought you might like to hear it so that you can quote it if necessary.
‘It seems to be a common belief (forgive me for generalizing, but particularly in the USA where it has become a political issue) that there is no scientific consensus on the subject of climate change.
This is unequivocally not true. There is debate about how fast the climate is changing, there is debate about how it is changing and how it will change, there is debate about how this will affect the Earth’s ecosystems and there is debate about how ‘much’ of it is caused by human beings.
Your GHGT-11 Blogger,
Toby Aiken
