Why is CCS not taking off?

Four large-scale carbon capture projects were launched this year, but regulatory and cost barriers for the technology threaten the world's ability to prevent temperatures from rising to dangerous levels, a new report warns. The annualreport of the Australia-based Global CCS Institute cited a few signs of progress in 2013 -- the four new projects, along with eight existing ones in operation, are preventing 25 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from reaching the atmosphere annually. Yet all of the world's existing and new projects are on natural gas processing plants or other facilities that separate CO2 as part of a normal industrial procedure.

There still are no carbon capture projects operating in the power sector, and there is little movement toward implementing the technology on big industrial emitters like cement manufacturers. Since last year's report, 12 projects were either canceled or put on hold, largely because of the high cost of the technology.

The report noted, for example, that the current CO2 pipeline network will need to be expanded 100 times to carry enough captured greenhouse gas to hold global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. Countries that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will account for most of the growth in primary energy demand through 2035, according to the IEA, but there are few projects far along in the planning stage in many of those countries.

Meanwhile, funding support for CCS globally has fallen by more than $7 billion from 2009, "reflecting either changing government priorities or a reliance on carbon price support that has subsequently collapsed," the institute said. In Europe, there have not been new operational projects since 2008.

Cost is not the only challenge. Siting new pipelines to carry CO2 is a "phenomenally difficult" task in many countries, including India. India emits roughly 6 percent of the world's carbon dioxide, according to U.S. EPA.

To boost the number of projects, the report recommends additional financial support for both construction and research, to reduce the cost of CO2 capture. It says there is no one-size-fits-all option -- capital grants, subsidies and ratepayer cost recovery agreements all have been used effectively to boost the technology.

Detractors of CCS say the technology is far too energy intensive to be feasible. The jury is still out on that!

Just not enough space to bury carbon

It turns out carbon sequestration is more than just expensive. A new report has found that we're going to need some 5 to 20 times the amount of space underground once thought to store all the carbon we release from our plants.

The study in the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, "Sequestering carbon dioxide in a closed underground volume," notes how published reports on the potential for sequestration fail to address the necessity of storing CO2 in a closed system.

“Our calculations suggest that the volume of liquid or supercritical CO2 to be disposed cannot exceed more than about 1% of pore space. This will require from 5 to 20 times more underground reservoir volume than has been envisioned by many, and it renders geologic sequestration of CO2 a profoundly non-feasible option for the management of CO2 emissions.”

For a typical commercial coal-fired power plant, this is interpreted as a storage area the size of a small US state!

“Conversely, for more moderate size reservoirs, and with moderate permeability there would be a need for hundreds of wells. Neither of these bodes well for geological CO2 sequestration and the findings of this work clearly suggest that it is not a practical means to provide any substantive reduction in CO2 emissions, although it has been repeatedly presented as such by others.”

There goes another hope for the coal lobby.

Carbon capture to get a boost

When it comes to coal, there are two extreme opinions – for or against. Those for the fuel are not giving up on ways to take the carbon bite out of coal. While carbon capture and sequestration technology remains controversial, a team from MIT has been studying a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technique called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion. This process converts the carbon dioxide emissions of a power plant into a pressurized liquid stream meant to be pumped underground.

NYT reports similar plans of American Electric Power’s to inject about 100,000 tons annually for two to five years at ist Mountaineer plant in West Virginia. The plan, to begin in the next few days, is to convert carbon dioxide to a fluid into a layer of sandstone 7800 feet below and then into a layer of dolomite even below. The liquid will displace salt water and assume a shape of a squashed football 30-40 feet high and hundreds of yards long!

E.ON and Siemens have launched a carbon capture pilot project at E.ON’s Staudinger coal-fired power plant in Grosskrotzenburg near Hanau, Germany.

A post-combustion capture process developed by Siemens will be used to remove over 90% of the CO2 from the flue gases of one of the units at the E.ON plant. Siemens will run the carbon capture facility until the end of 2010 to test the long-term chemical stability and efficiency of the cleaning agents under real operating conditions. The initial pilot project could, if successful, form the basis of large-scale demonstration of the technology.

There are still some who fear we haven't understood the geology of deep terrains where we plan to pump and store the carbon. Will the displaced water be affected? Will the carbon stay in a stable form? Is CCS just a way of burying troubles?