BEST
To continue its effort and ensure rapid deployment of environmentally sound CCS, Bellona is running the Bellona Environmental CCS Team, - BEST, a partnership with leading European energy and technology companies.
Bellona’s experience shows that the three keys to success in driving the political decision-making process forwards are: partnership with progressive industrial players, knowledge-leadership and political leadership. The Bellona Environmental CCS Team (BEST) will develop activities in all three areas.
Key elements of the program are: The creation of national roadmaps for CCS deployment, an analysis program to provide knowledge-leadership within key scientific aspects of CCS and public awareness-raising.
Relevance of BEST
Several important milestones for CCS in the EU have already been achieved. The European Parliament has endorsed the new directive on CO2 storage, and mechanisms for funding CCS demonstration projects have been established through the New Entrants Reserve Programme (NER) and the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR). But several challenges still remain before CCS becomes a commercially viable technology The biggest challenge is now to ensure that the directive is implemented in laws and regulations in Member States. This only adds to the challenge of financing CCS demonstration projects. The NER and EERP financing mechanisms will not cover the full cost, and funding from industry and Member States are also required to ensure that the demonstration projects are fully financed. BEST will address this challenge and contribute to successful political decisions in selected countries to accelerate CCS deployment. By doing so BEST will pave way for a commercial market for CCS and contributing to reaching GHG emission reduction targets.
The goal of the deployment programme is to support the decision-making process necessary to accelerate the deployment of environmentally sound CCS. Roadmaps for CCS deployment will be a key element of the deployment programme as it will provide the necessary knowledge basis to engage with key stakeholders and the general public to raise awareness in selected countries.
Bellona seeks to work closely with its partners with a view to presenting comprehensive reports on the role of CCS and its roll out in key countries. ‘Roadmaps for CCS Deployment’ in specific countries will therefore be established. The studies will focus mainly on those countries where energy production is largely based on fossil fuels and where CCS can play an important role to ensure CO2 emission reduction and energy supply security.
Country selection
The BEST Leadership Forum, where all BEST partners are represented, will decide on a list of countries where BEST will establish CCS roadmaps. The initial aim is, however, to establish such roadmaps for the countries listed below.
Roadmap design strategy
Each country-specific roadmap will be delivered as a report. They will be based on existing literature and interviews with industrial stakeholders, academics and government experts. These roadmaps will be the cornerstone of BEST outreach activities. They will be carried out by BEST staff in Oslo, Brussels and each country. The roadmaps will be continuously updated throughout the BEST project.
The roadmaps will include the following:
i) An initial mapping exercise of the state of CCS-relevant studies and politics in each country (many of which Bellona has already carried out as of September 2009).
ii) An emission scenario for 2050 presenting the role of CCS as part of a broader climate change mitigation portfolio. This “national Bellona scenario” will be carried out in a bottom-up manner similar to the “How to combat global warming” scenario (i.e. resulting in a carbon-negative EU by 2050). These scenarios will be combined with regulatory scenarios and they will identify what regulations are needed at national and European level to reach the targeted CCS deployment.
iii) A sketch of potential CCS value chains (from source to sink) in 2050.
iv) Simplified techno-economic analysis of future CCS markets in the national Bellona scenario (building on existing literature and the upcoming global CCS Roadmap from the International Energy Agency, IEA). The main emphasis will be on identifying cost levels for the power and industry sectors to deploy CCS to the extent necessary – and the corresponding market opportunities for CCS technology.
v) Recommendations for how policy makers, industry, research companies and NGOs should work together to achieve the appropriate level of CCS deployment.
II. Advocacy
Bellona is a progressive environmental pressure group. The national CCS roadmaps will provide the basis for pointed advocacy in the selected countries. This advocacy will be aimed at enhancing public understanding of CCS and facilitating policy implementation for CCS deployment. Advocacy plans will be elaborated in detail for 12 months at a time in order to adjust to political developments. The strategic directions of the advocacy programme are sketched out below.
Advocacy in the EU
Centred on Bellona’s presence in Brussels, a European team will be established to carry out advocacy in selected MS.
Based on Bellona’s well-established expertise in advocating the need for CCS, the MS advocacy team will use all available tools for political campaigning:
i) Engage in dialogue with other environmental NGOs in the selected MS and build coalitions within civil society more broadly and, when relevant, with companies. The national Bellona scenarios for emissions will be the key platform for such dialogue.
ii) Build regional coalitions for specific CCS projects (along the lines of Rotterdam Climate Initiative).
iii) Cover all key CCS and climate change conferences to make the environmental case for CCS heard publicly.
iv) Provide both technical and general information targeting all relevant national and regional media. The aim is to provide objective information about how CCS works, its challenges and opportunities, why it is needed, and how CCS fits into the wider portfolio of climate mitigation options.
Although advocacy in selected Member States is a top priority of BEST, Brussels will remain an important forum for advocacy on CCS. Advocacy towards the EU institutions will continue to achieve best public value and maximum CO2 reductions through the EU emission allowances set aside for CCS through the ETS directive, as well as CCS funding from the EU budget. Advocacy will also pursue the proposal for a CO2 emission performance standard (EPS) for EU power generation, which will act as a regulatory stick for CCS to complement the financial carrots already adopted.
Training
Nationals will be recruited from the selected MS. However, before anyone starts operating in national capitals, extensive training with Bellona in Oslo and Brussels will be delivered (on average three months in total). Some national experts have already been identified through a “CCS mapping” project undertaken May-September 2009 with consultants in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Advocacy outside the EU
Bellona is also planning a substantial effort to communicate the importance of deploying environmentally sound CCS before and during the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen. Cooperation of with key stakeholders in the US is also on the drawing board.
Expansion of BEST into key coal-burning countries outside the EU will be considered after roadmaps and advocacy have been well established in key EU Member States.. In the meantime, co-ordination with similar efforts outside Europe will be ensured through participation in initiatives by – in particular – the International Energy Agency, the Global CCS Institute and ClimateWorks’ CCS Commercialisation Network.
III. Information hub - The Bellona CCS web
Lack of public awareness of CCS as a tool to mitigate global warming is commonly quoted as one of the main barriers to global deployment of CCS. As an independent environmental NGO with expertise on the political, technical and environmental aspects of CCS, Bellona is uniquely positioned to play a key role in overcoming the public awareness barrier. Bellona has therefore developed the Bellona CCS Web (www.bellona.org/ccs) to serve as a global information hub for accurate information about CCS.
The Bellona CCS Web is designed to inspire the user to explore the world of CCS. The underlying rationale is that a strong support base for CCS can only be built if key stakeholders and the general public are informed about how CCS works, why it is needed and what is needed to make it happen. The CCS Web, therefore, provides accurate information supported by dynamic animations, figures and illustrations. The target group is the wider public, including students, politicians, civil servants, journalists and business leaders seeking information on CCS. The BEST project aims at continuously upgrading the Bellona CCS Web and establish it as the world’s premier source of information about CCS. The web site will be improved with new and professional animations and illustrations, and the web site will be continuously updated with news and relevant information about CCS. The Bellona CCS Web is today available in English, but translation of top information (such as the CCS roadmaps) into other languages will be considered.
Communicating CCS is challenging, and in order to ensure the highest standards of our CCS Web and advocacy in international media and communication channels, BEST will employ a fluent English speaking CCS communications officer.
Front page of the Bellona CCS Web, www.bellona.org/CCS
Bellona’s experience clearly shows that advocacy is most effective when it is founded on rigorous environmental, technical and socioeconomic analysis. For example, Bellona has published widely quoted analyses of the role CCS can play in achieving the needed level of emission reductions in Europe and globally, and a pioneering study of the potential for establishing a commercially viable CO2-for-EOR value chain on the Norwegian Continental Shelf . Bellona is also an integral part of European research projects, actively cooperating with the leading research institutes within key aspects of CCS.
The BEST analysis program will build on these achievements to form the knowledge foundation for a successful deployment programme. In close connection with academia and industry, the analysis program will drive the development of cutting-edge analysis within environmental impact analysis, CO2 storage safety and monitoring, energy systems analysis, policy and regulatory analysis, and effective communication of CCS. Innovative concepts such as ‘carbon negative’ CCS will also be analysed in order to provide a positive, sustainable vision for CCS.
Deliverables from the analyses program will be scientific report covering recommendations on how to overcome challenges related to CCS commercialisation. The reports will be key tools for the BEST deployment programme and they will form the basis for efficient and fruitful advocacy of CCS.
I. Environmental impact analysis
Environmental impact analysis is important in order to make sure that the inevitable trade-offs between various environmental costs and benefits throughout the CCS value chain are addressed in a systematic manner.
Evaluation of environmental impacts in the BEST project will include both global and local environmental effects, and the analysis will be carried out in a life cycle perspective. For this purpose, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool that can reveal the true GHG emission reduction potential of various CCS systems and at the same time identify other relevant environmental impacts throughout the value chain.
Several LCA of the entire value chain from fuel extraction to the ultimate sequestration of CO2 have already been carried out by the academic community. The BEST analysis programme will create a synthesis of these with the aim of providing pointers for further analysis and extract implications for deployment of CCS. On top, it will include a political and research dimension.
The BEST analysis programme will use the EU CCS demonstration programme as a case-study for comparison of the environmental performance (including global warming potential and energy balance) between various CCS systems. These studies will allow to identify the best processes from an environmental point of view and to decide where further research is necessary.
II. Safe CO2 storage
CCS is only an acceptable strategy to mitigate global warming if it is undertaken in a safe manner. Perceived uncertainties and ambiguities with respect to the capacity to ensure safe storage of CO2 on a large scale is a main potential barrier to broad deployment of CCS. Confidence and credibility within this field is therefore a prerequisite for an effective deployment programme.
The BEST analysis programme will expand on Bellona’s established knowledge base within CO2 storage, with particular focus on analysing and synthesising knowledge about
i) CO2 storage capacity on a global and regional basis, including depleted oil and gas fields, saline aquifers and basalt rocks
ii) geological trapping mechanisms that make sure that CO2 remains safely stored after its injection in the reservoir
iii) methodology for characterization and selection of storage sites
iv) techniques for monitoring of the storage site during and after injection
v) remediation techniques in the case of detected leakage
vi) environmental and health impact in case of leakage
vii) how to communicate the concept of safe storage to decision makers and to the wider public In addition to ensuring confident and credible advocacy of CCS, this analysis forms the basis for contributing to the establishment of industry standards and guidelines for site selection, environmental impact assessments, monitoring requirements and leakage remediation.
III. Techno-economic analysis
In the 2005-report on CO2 for EOR on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) , Bellona showed how a techno-economically viable value chain for CCS could be established. This report serves as a roadmap for the effort to deploy CCS on the NCS. Upon this foundation, Bellona is a partner in the European research project ECCO, which aims to design a European value chain that links CO2 sources with CO2 storage sites.
Another important part of Bellona’s recent work has been the studies of the potential role of CCS in the wider climate change agenda. In a scientifically sound manner, this research shows that an ambitious climate policy is not feasible without large-scale deployment of CCS. Within the BEST analysis programme, Bellona will continue to develop cutting-edge analysis in the techno-economic field, including monitoring the development of new capture concepts and technologies and analysing new concepts for application of CCS.
IV. Regulatory analysis
Deployment of CCS must be driven by a combination of a carrot and a stick, and advocacy of CCS must address both these issues to be credible.
The goal of ZEP is to make CCS commercially available by 2020. In the demonstration phase up to 2020, power plants with CCS will have to carry an extra cost compared to plants without CCS, so it is important to device a carrot in the form of a financing scheme. Within the BEST analysis programme, Bellona will carry out scenario analysis of various possibilities for securing this financing within key countries and on a global basis, and publish reports with key findings.
To supplement the financial carrot, a regulatory stick is important. The most promising alternative here is to set an Emission Performance Standard – EPS. Bellona has analysed the pros and cons of various possible schemes for an EPS, and published a report with recommendations.
V. Carbon negative CCS
In principle, biomass binds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows. Substituting fossil fuels and feedstocks in transportation, space heating, industry, and power generation with biomass can therefore be considered carbon neutral. Combining these biomass applications with CCS takes this one step further, creating carbon negative value chains that actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
This carbon negative vision for CCS is important for several reasons. First of all, carbon negative CCS play an important role in all global mitigation scenarios that actually manage to reduce emissions as much as the IPCC advocates to be able to contain global warming at maximum 2 degrees and avoid hitting global climate tipping points. For example, Bellona’s own 85 percent reduction scenario published in 2008 shows that carbon negative energy delivers 18% of the necessary reductions.
Secondly, the latest scientific observations of climate change indicate that the climate is already warming faster than the most pessimistic climate scenarios. This has led climatologists like Dr. James Hansen and colleagues to advocate a reduction of atmospheric levels of CO2 from 387 ppm at current to 350 ppm. Carbon negative CCS is one of the most promising ways to do so. Thirdly, reaching an ambitious deal on climate change is only possible if it is perceived as strengthening industrial development in poor countries. CCS in combination with biomass for energy does so by enabling the creation of a global green energy commodity market that offers developing countries an opportunity to create an export-oriented green energy industry, and with it much-needed jobs and economic development.
Some energy companies are already set to integrate biomass with CCS. Vattenfall has launched a programme to co-fire biomass with coal at their first CCS demonstration plant, the Nordjylland power plant, while RWE is planning a demonstration of micro-algae production at one of their power plants in Germany. As part of the effort to provide a positive long-term vision for CCS, BEST will support efforts like these by analysing and communicating the changes in policy and regulatory frameworks necessary to facilitate the development of carbon negative CCS.
