The Arctic as a resource base
What’s wrong with Russia’s official documents on the Arctic.
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Publish date: March 21, 2011
Written by: Niklas Kalvø Tessem
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The report identified that governments have made commitments valued up to 40 billion US$ to support CCS demonstration projects and 11.7 billion of these were designated to large-scale projects. Funding for specific large scale projects are expected to double within the next couple of years. In addition, 2.4 billion US$ has been given to R&D activities.
“In addition to this project activity governments continued to pursue the development of policy, regulatory and legal frameworks to support CCS projects,” said the Global CCS Institute’s Interim CEO, John Hartwell, to the Carbon Capture Journal.
Different regions
CCS funding is spread out unevenly across regions. North America accounts for 39 of the 77 identified LSIPs (31 in the US and 8 in Canada), making it the region with most government- funded projects. In addition, many North American projects are seeking extra revenue from the sale of CO₂ to use in enhanced oil recovery.
In Europe the pace of CCS deployment is slower, mostly related to the longer timeframe for disbursement under the NER 300 funding mechanism and uncertain economic conditions. In total, Europe has 21 LSIPs, of which two are operational in Norway, and 11 are under development in the UK and the Netherlands. In China, the report identifies 5 LSIPs under development, run by large state-owned companies. There are presently no projects in the large emitting countries Japan, India and Russia.
“Looking ahead, the Institute anticipates that during 2011 a number of projects will have completed concept definition studies and be in a position to move to the next stage of development,” says John Hartwell.
Storage and funding
The report offers some good news about storage capacity. Deep saline formation makes up the vast majority of suitable geological formations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that it was likely (with 66 % probability) that at least 2,000 Gt of storage capacity was available. When assessing storage sites there still seems to be an inherent desire to opt for sites close to the emission source. This is not always viable, and it is important to weight close location with storage risks and other attributes of the site.
The question of costs related to CCS demonstration projects is still contentious. The costs associated with investing in and constructing large scale energy projects in general have increased, and CCS costs has followed this trend. There is still little detailed project specific information available, and costs vary widely between industries, technologies and regions.
What’s wrong with Russia’s official documents on the Arctic.
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