Europe

Abengoa’s ethanol production facility in the Netherlands is capable of producing 480 million liters of bioethanol per year to be blended into petrol. The CO₂ produced during the bio-ethanol production process is captured, compressed and transported via a pipeline to greenhouses in Westland. There it is used for the growth process of plants and vegetables. In this way the production facility reduces greenhouse gas emissions in both from the production processes and in the transport sector.

Short resume: PGE EBSA proposes to integrate carbon capture and storage into a new 858MW lignite-based power unit to be added to the existing Bełchatów Power Station. The project will include a CO₂ capture plant of equivalent power of more than 250MW and a CO₂ capture efficiency of more than 80%, utilizing the Advanced Amine Process, and its integration with the unit. The captured and compressed CO₂ will be transported by pipeline to the storage site, where the pressurized CO2 will be injected to deep saline aquifers for permanent storage. Storage site selection and feasibility study for transport have been completed. 

Short resume: The site, which is designed and expected to be fully operational in 2013, will contain three wells with a depth of around 1600 meter – one for injection, one for geophysical monitoring and one for multi-level sampling. The wells will all be equipped with monitoring equipment, covering a range of different techniques. The main expected outcomes will be in connection with modeling injection strategies, study of long-term behaviour of CO₂ and its associated safety assessment, technologies and methodologies for CO₂ injection and its consequent monitoring.

Short resume: The es.CO2 Centre is run by CIUDEN, described above, in the North West of Spain to test capture and transportation infrastructure for CO₂. The Capture Centre comprises the operation of a large-scale integrated test facility for advanced CO₂ capture technologies in coal power generation. The transport test rig is a semi-industrial size CO₂ transport installation, integrated to the capture centre. It will provide the basis for the design, maintenance and operation of industrial CO₂ pipelines.

Short resume: The Don Valley project seeks to demonstrate CCS on a new 650 MW integrated gas-fuelled combined cycle (IGCC) in South Yorkshire. The plant will capture approximately 90% of the emissions from the power plant, or up to 5 million tonnes per year. The CO2 will then be transported in National Grid pipelines to the North Sea for permanent storage and enhanced oil recovery. The project is the only UK project to be awarded EEPR funding and is one of the competitors in the UK CCS competition. Construction is expected to start 2013.

Short resume: Getica is Romania’s first CCS project, with operations planned to start in 2017. The plant will provide capture, transportation and storage for 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually. The CO2 will be transported in 40km of pipelines to the storage site where it will be kept permanently in deep saline geological formations. The value of the project is €1 billion, and funding has been sought from the EU financial instrument NER300.

Short resume: This Project concerns the design, construction, and operation of CO2 capture plant from a stream of a hydrogen plant located at Rozenburg in the municipality of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, followed by the transport and storage of the CO2 captured to a Dutch depleted gas field. Hydrogen product will be produced via steam methane reforming of natural gas. CO2 from the tail gas stream of the hydrogen plant will be extracted in a cryogenic separation unit and compressed for onward pipeline transportation in gaseous phase. A continuous CO2 stream of approximately 66 t/h will be transported through a short 500 m pipeline leading to 24 km trunk pipeline routed through the Rotterdam industrial port area to the CO2 hub storage area at the shoreline. At the Rotterdam hub, the CO2 will be liquefied and stored, with three 10000 m3 onshore storage vessels. 

Short resume:  The pilot unit began operating in the autumn of 2009 with a planned 12-month lifetime. The pilot is retrofitted to an auxiliary steam boiler that combusts a high sulphur oil. About 90% of the carbon dioxide in the flue gases is absorbed in the reactor. After the reactor, the flue gases are scrubbed of ammonia in a new scrubbing column reactor using water. The flue gases are then released into the atmosphere.

Short resume:  Under the management of the GFZ in cooperation with 18 partners from nine countries, the injection into and storage of CO₂ in deep, saltwater-filled, porous rocks is taking place in Ketzin. The project started in 2004. The drilling of three injection wells was completed in 2007. Injection started in June 2008. The project is operated under CO₂MAN (CO₂-Reservoir Management). CO₂MAN started in September 2010 and will continue prospectively until August 2013. Ketzin was previously operated by CO₂SINK which ended in March 2010. 61.402 tons of CO₂ have been injected until May 20th, 2012. Due to drilling operations, the injection is stopped for several months.

Short resume: The Killingholme project is planned to be a new 470 MW power plant in North Lincolnshire. It will operate either as a a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGC) or an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) or power plant, to which CCS can be retrofitted. As a CCGC power station it would emit about 55% less than a conventional coal power plant, and as an IGCC plant with CCS about 85% less. In addition to the electricity generated, the plant will provide steam and hot water to local industry and residents. Pending on funding and planning decisions, construction is expected to start in 2016 or 2017.

Short resume: The gas field K12-B, located in the Dutch sector of the North Sea, some 150 km northwest of Amsterdam, is selected as a demonstration site for offshore injection of CO₂. K12-B is the first site in the world where CO₂ is being injected into the same reservoir from which it originated. The use of tracers has contributed to an improved understanding of the reservoir and its behavior. As far as; the K12-B field shows great potential for CO₂ storage and the potential for enhanced gas recovery is still close under investigation

Short resume: The Lacq CCS project is an integrated CO₂ capture transport and storage project with a planned lifespan of two years. The capture takes place by the industrial complex of Lacq, in the South West of France, and is transported in existing gas pipelines to Jurançon, 30 km from the source, for storage in a porous gas reservoir at a depth of 4500m. The aims of the project were to demonstrate the technical feasibility of integrated CO₂ capture, transportation, injection and storage onshore scheme for steam production at an industrial scale; develop a 30MW oxycombustion boiler with CO₂ storage; and develop geological storage qualification methodologies and monitoring techniques.

Short resume: The Mongstad full-scale project is likely to become one of the world’s first integrated, large-scale CCS projects in operation. The Statoil Hydro-owned Mongstad refinery is already one of Norway’s largest sources of CO₂, with 1.3 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted per year. Plans call for a final decision on the size and type of the full-scale facility to be taken in 2016, and engineering and construction work will start immediately. In May 2012 the Technology Centre Mongstad was opened, the world’s largest facility for testing and improving CO2 capture.

Short resume: Pure CO2 is captured at the Pernis hydrogen plant, compressed by Linde Gas Benelux and transported to the beverage industry to carbonate soft drinks. Another part of the Pernis CO2 is sent to greenhouses where it is used as a nutrient for fruit and vegetables. Shell also captures CO2 from its Moerdijk petrochemical plant and sells it to industrial customers.

Short resume: Peterhead is one of the competitors in the UK CCS competition, relaunched early 2012. The project would be first full-scale CCS gas facility in the UK. It would capture CO2 from SSE’s Peterhead power station and transporting it to Shell’s Goldeneye offshore geological facility in the North Sea. The Peterhead project aims to design and develop a full chain, post-combustion CCS facility, capable of capturing CO2 from a 385MW combined cycle gas turbine unit at the power plant.

Short resume: The planned demonstration project at Porto Tolle will capture CO2 from the flue stream of a power plant, and compress, transport and store it in a saline aquifer. The project involved retrofitting of a 660MW coal-fired power station with a post-combustion CO2 capture system. The capture equipment will be design to treat a flue gas flow rate of 0,8MNm3/h, corresponding to 250MW of electrical output. The project has been awarded €100 million by EEPR to finance the first construction phase.

Short resume: CO₂ is captured at the 14 MW pilot plant that ELCOGAS has built in its Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant at Puertollano, Spain. The main objectives of the project are industrial-scale validation,  while also examining other possibilities on a laboratory scale, of CO₂ pre-combustion capture technology with H₂ production in an IGCC plant and to obtain enough economic data to be able to scale up to the full syngas production capacity of the Puertollano IGCC plant.

Short resume: ROAD is a EU-backed CCS demonstration project. It plans to capture emissions from 250MW of a new 1GW Maasvlakte coal fired power plant (to run alongside the existing power station), transport the CO₂ via pipeline approximately 25 km offshore and store it in one or a number of soon to be depleted gas fields. ROAD is to demonstrate the technical feasibility and economics of a large-scale, integrated CCS-chain. ROAD applies the post combustion technology to capture the CO₂ from the flue gases. The capture unit has a capacity of 250 MW equivalent and aims is to capture 1.1 million tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Short resume: Alstom was awarded the contract by Vattenfall to build the steam generator and electrostatic precipitator (ESP) for the first 30MW oxycombustion plant in the world, designed to operate on air, as well as on oxygen mode. Operation at the pilot plant started mid 2008. The plant is scheduled to be operated for a ten year period. One of the most important results from the first years of operation is the fact that the principle of the Oxyfuel process could be verified on an industrially relevant scale. The results show that the CO₂ can have a high level of purity. The achievable capture rate is greater than 90%, which means that more than 90% of the CO₂ that enters liquefaction can be separated from the flue gas.

Short resume: Sleipner is a CO₂ storage project located off the west coast of Norway, where CO₂ is separated from fossil gas produced at the field. Capturing and storing the CO₂ is attractive both because of the high CO₂ concentration in the gas, 9%, and the CO₂ tax set by the Norwegian government. The storage of the gas during the long period has allowed for advanced research and an improved understanding of long-term CO₂ storage to take place.

Short resume: The Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea supplies gas to the world’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant with CO₂ capture and storage. The liquefaction, done by cooling to a very low temperature, requires the CO₂ to be separated and removed. The CO₂ is then transported back to the Snøhvit field where it is stored in a geological layer of porous sandstone 2,500m beneath the seabed. The stored CO₂ is monitored through an EU-funded project.

Short resume: The Teesside Low Carbon consortium is planning to develop a new facility to convert coal into a hydrogen-rich synthesis gas (syngas) and CO2 using established chemical processes. The CO2 would be transported in a National Grid pipeline for permanent storage in a depleted oil field in the North Sea. Some CO2 would also be injected and stored in a saline aquifer to provide substantial future storage capacity and diversity. The CO2 storage would be under the responsibility of Fairfield Energy, Premier Oil and Progressive Energy who hold licenses for the relevant fields and aquifer. The project is seeking funding from NER300 and the UK government, and pending on funding decision, construction is expected to start 2013.

Short resume: The purpose of this demonstration project is to assess the suitability of the Florange site for retrofitting a CO₂ capture and storage prototype unit to an iron and steel manufacturing plant.  As an industry, iron and steel manufacturing are significant sources of CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere.  The project incorporates post-combustion technology on a steel plant to capture CO₂. Up to 700,000 tonnes per annum of CO₂ are expected to be captured at the plant and the captured CO₂ would be transported 60-80 km via an oversized pipeline for storage in onshore deep saline formations.

Short resume: The White Rose CCS project, previously Drax, is planned to be a 436 MW (gross) oxyfuel CCS demonstration project at the existing Drax coal power station in North Yorkshire. Alstom is responsible for construction of the plant and CO2 processing unit and BOC for construction of the air separation unit. Drax is responsible for operation and maintenance (O&M) of the power plant and the CO2 processing facility and BOC for O&M of the air separation unit. National Grid will, through an associated project, construct and operate CO2 pipelines and the permanent CO2 undersea storage facilities in the North Sea. The plant has potential to co-fire biomass, which could ultimately make it carbon negative. Funding is being seeked from NER300 and the UK government CCS competition.