The acid test

CCS needs to get off the drawing board and into action. Tore Amundsen explains the role a leading test centre in Norway is playing

Fossil fuels will account for 60 per cent of energy generation by 2030, so emissions must be curtailed to address the onset of climate change. To keep our climate within the safe maximum scenario of 2 degrees warming, the International Energy Agency calculates that no more than 1,440 gigatonnes of carbon can be emitted globally by 2050. Emissions have already reached 400 gigatonnes, which leaves only 1,000 gigatonnes to be burned – just one-third of current proven reserves.

Only carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to transform fossil fuels into a low-carbon energy source. The technology is capable of reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel power stations by as much as 90 per cent. On top of this, it could enable generators to benefit from the rise in cheap unconventional energy such as shale gas, while simultaneously helping countries avoid penalties for missing legally binding carbon targets.

Technology testing is vital for verifying capture technology, which in turn can reduce costs, plus technical, environmental and financial risks, thereby creating the preconditions for CCS success. The UK Energy Research Council spent two years researching the means for establishing CCS as a mainstream technology and came to the same conclusion: a regulatory approach making CCS compulsory in all plants will only work if the technology is more advanced.

To meet the need for testing, CCS test centres have been developed on a major scale, allowing the safe simulation of carbon capture. CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), Norway, is very advanced. It was set up as a joint venture between Statoil, Shell, Sasol and Norwegian state energy company Gassnova.

TCM can capture up to 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from post-combustion refinery and gas-fired power station sources in real-life scenarios. It offers access to flue gases from a heat and power plant fired by natural gas from a nearby gas field and the flue gas from a refinery cracker. These two types of gases have different carbon dioxide levels (from 3.5 per cent and 13 per cent respectively), providing an opportunity to investigate capture technologies relevant for both power plants and industry.

After six years of development, TCM issued a global invitation for vendors to use the facilities to test, verify and demonstrate carbon capture technology, which will in turn help evolve methods of cost, technical, environmental and financial risk reduction.

The first technologies to be tested at TCM were a chilled ammonia process from Alstom and an amine process from Aker Solutions. Both of these are post-combustion capture and use a solvent for absorbing the carbon from the flue gas. They aim to capture about 85 per cent of the carbon emitted. TCM is now well underway with the first initial phase of 12-19 months of test campaigns.

Shell has also partnered with TCM. Its billion-dollar Quest CCS project linked to oil sands production, which received government financial support, will use operational experience from the capture processes tested at TCM. Other major technology brands are in line for the second phase of testing, including Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Siemens.

Tore Amundsen, chief executive of Gassnova and chairman of CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 22nd February 2013.

Get Utility Week’s expert news and comment – unique and indispensible – direct to your desk. Sign up for a trial subscription here: http://bit.ly/zzxQxx