Tag Archives: progress

Thoughts from the Greenman Award Recipient, Sally Benson

10 Dec

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

 

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US DOE Reflections on GHGT-11

4 Dec

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

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IEA Reflections on GHGT-11

30 Nov

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

 

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Global CCS Institute release ‘the global status of CCS: 2012′

19 Nov

Brad Page reported the highlights of this new publication;

Action is needed,
CCS is already contributing,
Steady progress but important developments,
Encouraging policy support, but more required,
Barriers must be overcome to realise the benefits of CCS,
Reducing the cost of technology through demonstration projects is vital,
Acceleration of CCS depends on collaboration and knowledge sharing,

When the projects identified are plotted against the IEA scenario, we see that by 2015 we are on track for around 70% of target, but by 2020 we are considerably lacking.

However, this updated report identifies a lot of new projects at the first step of recognition, and this is largely due to development of CCS, CCUS and EOR projects, so despite this apparent lack against IEA targets, there are still important developments to recognise that could be promising. The dramatic increase in EOR inclusion is also promising; if these projects develop into permanent storage then this picture could well be improved.

CCS has been criticised for costs of CO2 avoided, but in fact CCS could be very competitive given the right government support.

Demonstration projects such as Quest, TCM Monstad and Boundary Dam are key in demonstrating and facilitating technology improvements, which will play important roles knowledge sharing will also prove pivotal, for example the experience of large scale pipeline networks resides predominantly in the US, and this should be shared to reduce development costs and promote deployment around the world.

Brad closed with the comment: ‘We must look at the needs of developing nations, this is a significant challenge, but one that we are up to’

For more information, please visit the website of the Global CCS Institute at http://www.globalccsinstitute.com

Your GHGT-11 Blogger,

Toby Aiken

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