The report “A bridge to a greener Greece: A realistic assessment of CCS potential”, which is launched today, makes a realistic long-term appraisal of the economic and environmental consequences of CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) deployment in Greece.

Half of Greece’s CO₂ emissions

CCS is a set of technologies that involve capturing CO₂ from major emission points and storing it permanently in underground geological formations.

The report’s firm conclusion is that timely and wide application of CCS in the energy and industry sectors would enhance yearly CO₂ emission abatement by 28.7 million tonnes of CO₂ – more than half of Greece’s current emissions – and produce total economic gains of €16bn by 2050 compared to a scenario with no CCS in Greece.

Absolute lack of CCS deployment in Greece leads to a significant cost increase between 2010 and 2050, given the expected increase in EU carbon prices (EAUs). Bellona’s premise is a cautious, linear increase in the carbon price, from 10 euros in 2010 to 90 euros in 2050. This compares to the UK government’s recently stated objective of setting a CO₂ emission price of £70 by 2030.

“The increase in the CO₂ emission  price will be a significant cost to Greece unless emissions are avoided by using CCS”, says Eivind Hoff, director of Bellona Europa.

Dirty electricity can go green

Greece in the coming decades will undoubtedly face a two-fold challenge: respond to the need to limit greenhouse gas emissions and find ways to encourage positive investment to drive economic development.

“There is now a highly needed boost for renewable energy in Greece, where investments are booming. But given that Greece has the EU’s highest share of electricity coming from lignite, the most CO₂-intensive energy source, there was an urgent need to look into the role CO₂ capture and storage could play”, explains Eivind Hoff, director of Bellona Europa.
 
To assess the environmental and economic impact of CCS this report examines three possible scenarios: ‘No deployment’ of CCS, ‘Constrained deployment’ and ‘Full deployment’ based on published projections by the Hellenic Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change. The ‘Full deployment’ scenario delivers not only the deepest emission cuts, but also the lowest electricity production costs.

Carbon negative power

What is more, combining a full deployment of CCS with biomass co-firing with coal allows the Greek power sector to become ‘carbon-negative’ by 2030, actually removing CO₂ from the atmosphere by producing power.
 
On a plant-by-plant basis, the report assesses which power plants and industry greenhoused gas emission sources are viable CCS candidates, by making specific proposals regarding CCS application for particular units and suitable storage sites.

“Given the Ministry’s plan for three new lignite-fired and about 20 new natural gas-fired units by 2030, producing enormous amounts of CO₂, CCS in the energy sector is indeed imperative. The Greek government needs to take a responsible stance on this issue now”,  underlines Eivind Hoff.

According to the ‘Full deployment’ scenario, CCS should be applied on all coal and gas-fired power plants with a projected lifespan extending beyond 2025 and on all major industrial CO₂ sources, such as refineries and cement plants, by 2040.

Do as Romania

To achieve this goal of wide CCS deployment, Greece would need to go forward with early demonstrations of the technology. The Romanian government recently took the decision to firmly support an early demonstration of CCS in that country.

“Greece, which is one of the EU’s highest CO₂ emitters per head due to the prevalence of fossil fuels as means of electricity production, needs to do the same. The increasing price of CO₂ under the EU’s emissions trading system is bound to make it economically beneficial to capture and store CO₂ rather than having to pay for emitting it”, stresses Eivind Hoff.
 
Bellona’s CCS roadmap for Greece sketches out a promising early CCS project in Greece: There are three new lignite-fired units planned in Western Macedonia where CO₂ capture equipment could be integrated, at the same time the Prinos oil field in the Aegean is in urgent need of CO₂ that can be injected into the oil fields to squeeze out more oil and sustain its operations, so-called enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

BEST

Since 1993, Bellona has been a key player in driving the CCS agenda forward in Norway, the EU and beyond. To continue this effort and ensure the rapid deployment of environmentally sound CCS, Bellona established the Bellona Environmental CCS Team (BEST) in 2009.

The CCS roadmap for Greece launched by BEST today is the first roadmap in a series of CCS roadmaps for different European countries.  In addition to Bellona staff in Oslo and Brussel, BEST consists of national experts in several European countries working for Bellona.