The GHGT10 conference is a major global event bringing together interested industry, research and other stakeholders who are making efforts to bring CCS from demonstration use to full scale deployment. Bellona’s CCS team is crucial in forwarding these efforts.

How safe and at what price?

A diverse audience gathered to listen to Sarah M. Wade, John Tombari, Stuart Haszeldine, Maarten Berkhout, Derek Taylor and Dan Daly discuss the cost issue of Carbon Capture and Storage at the side-event (download PDF to right) during the conference in Amsterdam yesterday. Bellona facilitated this discussion as it sees CCS as a vital tool to combat the climate situation. The side-event focused on the two most pressing challenges – CCS cost and security of storage.

Cabon dioxide storage – an opportunity for a vibrant community?

Wade and Daly from the AWJ opened the evening by presenting some experiences about interacting with communities adjacent to carbon storage sites in Canada and the US. They recommended the approach of a lasting dialogue with the local communities, local media, teachers, politicians and industry in relevant areas. They stressed the role of economic and other benefits for the local communities. Wade and Daly also emphasised that outreach should also be a focal point for governments and authorities, who should put into perspective relevant industry projects in terms of re-election potential and long-term investment environments. Their experience is that local communities and local administrations envision carbon capture and storage as an opportunity as something to which they must give the public context.

Can the bridge to a truly renewable society be made of the emissions trading scheme?

The discussion of whether EPS (Emission Performance Standard – download PDF at right) is a good tool to increase deployment of the CCS technology was intense and enthusiastic.

Bellona pointed out that the auctioning system fails to solve the emission reduction challenge substantially because of the issue of leakage of ETS allowances. The industry view, represented by Berkhout from Nuon, stressed, on the other hand, the need to trust the ETS market and work toward improving rather than introducing an emission standard that might not guarantee reduced emissions.

Both the industry and other stakeholders converge in their opinion that the ETS market, as of today, does not provide a fertile investment market. As a member of the panel put it “I know where my manager would give me a ‘Go’ on an oil exploration asset with 30 percent chance of success in terms of 20 percent incremental profit or on the storage asset with 3 percent incremental profit with the potential to cause large financial damage in terms of leakage.” The statement was a reference to Financial Security as described in the EU suggested guidelines for the EU Storage Directive.  

Nuon provided insight into the equipment costs and market hurdles of CCS and shed light on the impact of “non-ETS” regulation and renewables on EU-ETS price levels from an industry point of view. Berkhout claimed that the introduction of an EPS would not give a substantial CO2 emission reduction over a total time period, and that a double regulation like EPS or mandatory CCS lowers CO₂ prices and hence CCS viability.

Taylor of Bellona responded by reminding the audience of the ongoing processes and industry initiatives within the European Commission on EPS. Commenting on the current initiatives driven by industry players acknowledging the need for additional stimulation to trigger large-scale CCS implementation, Taylor stressed the additional stimulation that an EPS could provide.

Hazeldine of the University of Edinburgh responded to Berkhout by referring to the strong lobby working to delay CCS implementation, and he claimed that the volatility of the ETS market is favourable to industrial actors opposing CCS.

The failed experiment

Haszeldine recalled that the associated costs are those of species extinctions and loss of area due to sea-level rise and other consequences of climate change if we fail to reduce CO₂ emissions. “The last time the Earth tried a similar experiment on itself was 58 million years ago, and then it brutally failed. Seventy five percent of the species vanished,” he said.

As to storage safety, Haszeldine explained that the Earth’s subsurface is known and studied. The Earth has natural CO₂ gas reservoirs and deals with them. He cast the topic of storage in the context of saying that we don’t need to store CO₂ forever as “forever is at least 450 million years, but we need to store the CO₂ for some 10 000 years only”. Therefore, stressing the “forever” dimension of CO₂ storage is a huge exaggeration.

A bad driver can turn the safest car into a wreck in seconds

Haszeldine referred to the experience of the oil and gas industry: “We know the subsurface and we how to trap and inject CO₂”.

He emphasized his point by taking a sip of mineral water and adding that “CO₂ is not poisonous – we drink it every other day and it forms new minerals when injected underground.” He further compared operating an injection well to driving a car: No matter how safe a car you have, if the driver is bad he may drive it into a concrete wall within seconds.

“Injection and storage of CO₂ is not a challenge, but you have to do it properly – it is like when you don’t look at your speedometer and drive too fast –  the injected masses can breach to the sea-bottom or surface”, explained  Bellona CCS advisor Gøril Tjetland.

Tjetland stressed the need of a strong regulatory authority. “The guidelines and the storage directive are built in a way that they all rely on a strong and active competent authority to guide, regulate and approve storage sites and CO₂ subsurface injection projects in the EU Member states. Currently, Tjetland  said, we have not seen who and what this competent authority might be comprised of.

‘We don’t do this out of charity’

Tombari works for one of the companies providing the “drivers and the cars” for the oil and gas industry. He stressed the need for an oil and gas company to have demonstrated performance through years prior to applying for a storage permit. He put forward site selection as a critical success-factor and recommended starting at the easy sites and not be blinded by co-location of storage sites with CO₂ sources. “Safety is our main priority, we are into CCS with a long term motivation, but as a minimum we cannot lose money for the stakeholders,” said Tombari.

Taylor reminded the industrial actors in the room of the conditions for the EU’s 8NER300 subsidies, and that the projects might not receive public financial support unless they also prove they are injecting CO₂ before 2015.

At the end of the session, the discussion rounded up by looking at how many of the six ongoing NER300 demonstration projects that might be realized as full carbon capture AND storage projects will probably ever see light and touched upon the fact that site selection and investigations of saline aquifers might have a challenge of meeting the time target.