Because of the abundance of fossil fuels in developing countries, the need to deploy Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies in these countries is urgent, a problem that was discussed at last week’s “Addressing barriers to CCS in developing countries” seminar in Washington DC on September 7 and 8.  

The seminar was arranged by The World Bank, in cooperation with the Global CCS Institute, the International Energy Agency, the Carbon Storage Leadership Forum and the Norwegian Government.

Countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Mexico, Algeria, China, Egypt, Jordan, Kosovo and other countries in South East Asia presented plans to develop and deploy CCS.  

Though many plans were only preliminary, countries such as Mexico and South Africa forwarded concrete strategies for introducing CCS with a demonstration project to be built by 2020.

Challenges common to all the gather developing countries were the lack of a regulatory framework for the development of CCS, as well as a lack of resources to fund demonstration projects. Many of those gathered called for the creation of a global CCS fund that would support development of demonstration projects.

Dr. Edward Rubin, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University laid out the reasons for why developing countries should start preparing from CCS development.

Rubin underscored that while other energy sources will be important, CCS is the only way to achieve large CO₂ reductions from the use of fossil fuels for energy production.  It also offers the best potential for providing a bridge between fossil fuel energy economies to a fully sustainable energy future.

A transformation of the transportation sector to cars running on electricity and hydrogen is also needed.

As costly as these efforts may seem, Rubin contended that the expenditures the world will face to meet the climate challenge will be far higher without CSS technology.

Many delegates raised the issue of introducing CCS technologies into the Kyodo Protocol’s Clean development mechanism (CDM) and noted the important signal that would send to the market in emissions trading.

Bellona was invited at the seminar to present its projections for developing CCS deployment, specifically its Polish Road Map entitled “Insuring energy independence.” 

Poland, while far from being a developing country, is nonetheless heavily dependent on coal for over 90 percent of its electricity generation needs. Poland will need to update a large portion of its power plants in the coming decade.

With its vast coal resources and CO₂ storage in geological formations, Poland is especially well placed for making investments in CCS. 

In the Polish Road Map, Bellona looks at the future energy trajectory of Poland to until 2050 and identifies the costs and benefits of deploying CCS on a wide scale.

As the EU Emission Trading Scheme will put a price on CO₂ emissions, Poland has an economic incentive that will be reinforced as the price of emitting CO₂ increases over time.

Under all three trajectories, and across a wide range of possible EU climate and energy policies, it is clear that activities to commercialize and deploy CCS in Poland will result in lower costs of producing electricity, lower prices to the Polish consumers and a vast reduction in CO₂ emissions.