The 7th bi-annual Trondheim CCS Conference was held over 4^th – 6^th June in Trondheim, Norway. There were 350 delegates from 24 countries, with 153 oral presentations spread over 6 parallel sessions as well as 13 key note and plenary speakers, and more than 100 posters.

The conference was opened by Nils Røkke, the conference chair and vice-president of SINTEF, who emphasised the need to act now following the news of the atmosphere reaching 400ppm of CO₂. He also emphasised that CCS needs to be part of the solution, so therefore needs a ‘level playing field’ compared to other low carbon solutions. He also stressed the importance of industrial CCS, as the only way to reduce CO₂ emissions from industry (e.g. steel and cement) and bio-CCS as a potential carbon negative solution. There was also an update from Juho Lipponen, the head of the IEA CCS unit on the new IEA CCS roadmap, which will be due out in July. The new roadmap focuses on what governments need to do to get CCS in place. Ensuring the conference wasn’t just on European work, Mike Monea of Saskatchewan Power gave a plenary talk on the Boundary Dam project, the world’s first full-scale capture and storage from a coal power plant, now in advanced stages of construction.

IEAGHG studies presented at the conference were ‘Methodologies and Technologies for Mitigation of undesired CO₂ Migration in the Subsurface’, which was given by Thomas Le Guenan of BRGM and ‘Interaction of CO₂ Storage with subsurface resources’ and ‘Induced Seismicity and its Implication for CO₂ Storage Risk’ which were both presented by Millie Basava-Reddi of IEAGHG. Tim Dixon, IEAGHG’s Technical Programme Manager presented his work on Improving the Protocols for Leakage Monitoring with CO₂ Attribution Monitoring, which builds on activities of the IEAGHG Research Networks, two of which were meeting the following week in Trondheim – Risk Management Network and the Modelling Network.  In addition, Neil Wildgust, formerly of IEAGHG, talked on the main conclusions and best practices learned from the vast body of research within the IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project.

In each conference an award is given to a highly prized member of the CCS community and this year the award was given to Tore Torp, recently retired from Statoil. Dr. Tore Torp has championed the cause of CCS since the start of the world-pioneering Sleipner CO₂ project in 1996, and is recognized around the world for his contributions. In his speech, Tore talked about 2 ways forward for CCS – building trust through storage pilot projects and smaller steps, including the use R&D pilots using industrial sources of CO₂.

The conference is timed to alternative years with the GHGT series, and provided a good and very useful review  of new work carried out in the CCS research community, with a focus on Europe and how CCS can now go forwards there.

Millie Basava-Reddi and Tim Dixon

I have just spent 3 days in Austin, Texas in preparation for GHGT-12, with our hosts The University of Texas at Austin. I had the pleasure of visiting the conference venue- a spectacular conference centre which lives up to the ‘everything is larger in Texas’ perception. With the entire South side of the venue to accommodate the GHGT-12 conference, we will have 2 floors of presentation rooms, a light airy poster room combined with the lunch venue. I was also able to visit the prospective dinner venue, which for now I will leave as a surprise!

Austin is known as the capitol of live music of the world and the weekends either side of the GHGT-12 conference will host the Austin City Limits Music Festival with plenty of free events around the city, what better reason could you need to extend your stay? This will of course mean that accommodation on these dates will book quickly, we will be releasing accommodation information early to ensure you have the chance to secure a room for the duration of your stay.

 

Having stood on stage in Kyoto and encouraged everyone to come to Austin to see the largest urban population of bats emerge at sunset from under Congress Avenue bridge, well what else could I do but take my own advice and join the throngs of people lining the river, the banks and the bridge itself and witness the spectacle of not only a beautiful sunset, but also 3.2 million bats leave the safety of the underside of the bridge and head out to feed – just don’t stand downwind!

 

Austin is a very welcoming, friendly city with much to do, so combine this with the ambitious technical programme of the GHGT-12 conference and it becomes an event not to be missed. Watch out for the call for papers will opening September this year.

 

One part of travelling on business that can be amusing is listening or reading to the local news and seeing how different the take is on our news at home. One article I read in Canada Globe and Mail on Saturday 11^th May caught my attention. I have heard much in the international press on the Keystone pipeline saga and what a big issue this was supposed to have become in North America. The Global and Mail article entitled Digging In: A drive into the heart of a heated debate over TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.  The article was based on a reporters journey along the length of the pipeline to find out the views of those affected by the pipelines routing.

For Canada the pipeline offers a major new outlet for Albertan oil (mostly from tar sands operations) and is therefore being pursued by Governments and Industry alike.  The review of the Keystone XL pipeline has now taken 67 months and is considered in the article to be an example of how badly things can go for the energy industry when activists dig in and how costly resistance can be. However the author of the article infers that much of the pain being felt by industry is self-inflicted, caused by”hard nosed intransigent land agents” according to farmers. However there seems to be a reverse NIMBY effect with most people approving of the pipeline living closet and those furthest away the least approving. Much of this is considered to be down to a combination of economic benefits, and direct and indirect  compensation  grants by the pipeline company to those nearest the pipeline.

 

It seems the stakes are high and none more so in Nebraska where farmers have collaborated to form the Nebraska Easement Action Team with legal support to negotiate with the pipeline companies.  Their demands include: negligence shielding for accidental damage, regular compensation claims, to be able to renegotiate if the pipeline easement is ever sold. They hope to exploits the delays to date and TransCanadas desire to start work to their benefits.

 

So as I now understand it, somewhat disappointedly, the opposition to this pipeline is not about some grand global cause to prevent high carbon producing oil from the tar sands operation getting to market. It is more about what’s in it for me at a much more local level.  I guess something’s will never change.

 

I represented IEAGHG at the Global Institutes European and African members meeting in Edinburgh last week. I have to say Edinburgh is a great place to hold a meeting but back to business. The meeting provided the opportunity to meet the new Chairman of the Board, Paul Douglas. The Institute is still in transition from an Australian centric funded operation to a regionally dispersed operation with multiple funding sources. The Institute now has offices in Australia, Europe, North America, Japan and most recently China and has a globally dispersed staff resource across these offices. The next step in its transition will be the roll out of the future member funding arrangements which is expected in the summer of this year. All in all its seems that the Institutes transition phase is going ahead nicely.

One thing that struck me was the strength of the Scottish Governments commitment to CCS. The Minister for Environment and Climate Change made a strong case that climate change was a global issue and need a global response. He felt that the UK and Scotland we leading the way in Europe and more positive action from the EU on CCS was needed. He feels that Scotland with its oil and gas industry background has a lot of transferrable skills that can be used in the CCS industry.

 

Brad Page the CEO of the Institute, stressed that more support for CCS was needed in terms of funding commitments the EU was lagging behind Australia. He too reiterated that the UK was showing leadership in developing a market for CCS. But he also called for a level playing field highlighting the support for renewables in Germany (€45/t for wind and €100/t for carbon abatement with solar).

 

There was a panel session led by Graham Sweeney the Chairmen of the European Zero Emissions platform that centred on the low level of CCS deployment in Europe. One of the key conclusions from the panel is that the case for CCS had focused on climate change but had missed its target, because nobody was interested. The case for CCS had to be remade urgently based on job creation and other more material issues.

 

The European NGO Network launched a new report to coincide with the meeting entitled, Moving CCS Forward in Europe (see engonetwork.org to download a copy). One of the key ideas coming out of this report was the idea to establish a EU wide CCS certificate scheme. Utilities would be required to buy certificates to cover the CO₂ they emit giving the utilities an income from CO₂ abatement.  Peter Vis from the European Commission felt that this was a longer term solution, in the near term EPs needed to endorse the ‘backloading proposal’ or the EU had to move quickly to a market based scheme like the UK.

 

Overall an interesting meeting, it did not resolve the CCS problem in Europe but at least new ideas to move CCS forward in Europe are being proposed so one does get the feeling that all is not lost, but don’t expect anything radical overnight to happen.

 

The second annual ECO₂ meeting was hosted by the University of Bergen in Norway, from the 13^th to 16^th May 2013 and was attended by 90 experts, all interested in an update on the project progress to date and next steps. Representatives from the 27 organisations involved in the ECO₂ consortium attended the meeting, along with those from additional organisations involved within the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and Stakeholder Dialogue Board (SDB). IEAGHG are involved in the SDB, the main role of which is to act as the project’s stakeholder sounding board, providing general comments and specific advice where necessary.

The ECO₂ project is a 4 year undertaking that began in 2011 and is a Collaborative Project funded under the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme. It aims to assess the risks associated with the storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in offshore environments (so below the seabed). Little is known about the short-term and long-term impacts of CO₂ storage on marine ecosystems and the ECO₂ project will assess the likelihood and impacts of leakage on such ecosystems. The objectives of the project include investigating the likelihood of leakage from sub-seabed storage sites; to study the potential effects of leakage on marine ecosystems; to assess the risks of sub-seabed CO₂ storage; to develop a comprehensive monitoring strategy; and to define guidelines for the best environmental practices in implementation and management of sub-seabed CO₂ storage sites.

The project is split into 7 work packages (WPs): integrity of the sedimentary cover; fluid and gas flux across the seabed; fate of emitted CO₂; impact of leakage on ecosystems; risk assessment, economic and legal studies; public perception; and coordination and data management. The first four work packages form the scientific core of ECO₂, with the latter three uses these studies to assess, analyse and disseminate the findings. The work packages are cross-cut with four themes (the ‘cross-cutting themes’, or CCTs) to support and strengthen the information flow between packages, providing products by integrating and evaluating the outcomes of the work packages. CCT1 will provide a comprehensive monitoring strategy (using contributions from WPs 1 – 4); CCT2 will integrate the various numerical models developed (WPs 1 – 5); CCT3 will foster international cooperation; and CCT4 will define guidelines for environmental best practices (drawing information from all work packages and cross-cutting themes).

 

For more information on the ECO₂ project, please visit http://www.eCO₂-project.eu/home.html.

The twelfth annual Carbon Capture Utilization and Sequestration Conference was held again in Pittsburgh over 13-16 May. It was opened by Anthony Cugini Director NETL and the Honourable Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan, and its timing was just after the news that the atmosphere had reached 400 ppm of CO₂. These openers were followed by IEAGHG’s John Gale, who emphasised this 400ppm point as the prompt for more urgent action, and discussed whether CO₂ utilisation was a game-changer or distraction in the context of the net emissions reductions required.  This was followed by lots of great updates on North American projects, operating, being built, and being planned. In subsequent plenaries updates were also heard from the UK, EU, Norway, and Australia.

The five hundred plus attendees were treated to two afternoons of six parallel sessions of technical presentations covering all aspects of CCUS, as well as two good sessions of posters, all of which provided a lot of new information!

IEAGHG work was presented not just in the plenary. Tim Dixon and Millie Basava-Reddi gave four other presentations, and two contractors presented IEAGHG-commissioned work.  The presentations covered work on Subsurface Resource Interactions with CO₂ Storage, Induced Seismicity and CCS, Improving Leakage Monitoring Protocols with New Monitoring Techniques, and Transboundary Regulatory Developments. These presentations can be seen by IEAGHG members on http://www.ieaghg.org/index.php?/20100106145/iea-ghg-presentations.html . In addition, ICF presented the IEAGHG-commissioned work on Financial Mechanisms for Liability, and ARI presented the IEAGHG-commissioned work on Implications of Gas Production from Shales and Coal for CO₂ Geological Storage. This was one of a number of presentations on this topic, and may be the first time potential storage capacities for CO₂ in gas shales are being estimated and presented. From the ARI work for IEAGHG these are up to 740GT CO₂ globally, with 249 GT in North America, this is in the same order as in storage related to CO₂-EOR, and therefore suggests this area warrants further attention.

The conference concluded with a discussion panel on CO₂ utilisation in the USA, with many good and up-to-date points made by all, including on the life cycle emissions from CO₂-EOR, and the high demand for CO₂ for use in oil recovery. The final talk was from the Californian EPA on their emissions trading scheme becoming reality and their intentions on CCS fitting into it.

An excellent conference with a North American emphasis and lots of new information, including the seven presentations from IEAGHG. And with 400ppm being reached, there appeared to be a renewed focus on the need for CCUS to actually reduce emissions, so will it become CCuS?

The University of Texas at Austin Stand at Pittsburgh Conference

Tim Dixon and Millie Basava-Reddi

 

I had the pleasure to be invited today in Pittsburgh to a private luncheon hosted by the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, to discuss the Boundary Dam project and plans for dissemination of the results from this project internationally. Mike Monea from SaskPower outlined the business case for Boundary Dam; the choice was between low cost lignite and natural gas as the generating fuel. Lignite won because they could predict the price of the coal for the next 20 years, they could not forecast future prices of gas. In building the plant Mike was predicting lower capes costs than quoted in previous EPRI studies which is encouraging, however I suspect we may be comparing apples and pears as the cost of transport and storage is not included in SaskPower's costs, nevertheless mike indicated that having built this plant he feels that he can reduce the cost of the capture island by a further 20 to 30% which is a significant drop in costs for the next generation of plants. Also his parasitic load was only 21% compared to that quoted in other studies of 24 to 40%. So this project is already showing the benefits of building such demonstration plants and we look forward to learning more as operation starts.

This morning I think I got a brief idea of what into the lion’s den means. Ed Helminski who raises the Annual US CCUS conference asked me to give my views on CO₂ utilisation to the Conference in a key note address to delegates. The main points I tried to make were: that utilisation must involve permanent storage of CO₂ whereas in my view most of the uses are temporary storage only. I also made the point that apart from CO₂-EOR there was no significant market for the utilisation products the developers were producing. For CO₂-EOR I believe that this is not permanent storage as there is some emissions leakage due to the energy used to recycle and reinject the CO₂. Also I questioned whether CO₂-EOR was not really merely transferring emissions from the energy to the transport sector where global emissions are steadily increasing and we have to look at the whole picture and not just one sector.

However I did commend CO₂-EOR as a game changer as it is helping to finance demonstration projects in some parts of the world which will help build confidence in CCS which is essential to move the technology to broader implementation.

The audience’s response was tempered but I did get a couple of questions on price of carbon under the ETS and why CO₂-EOR was unlikely in the EU. At the tea break a few oil industry people politely tried to put me right that oil demand was statis not rising and CO₂-EOR oil displaces higher carbon oil. Sorry still don't buy these arguments. CO₂-EOR in my mind is a temporary measure and we need to get back to CCS soon.

May 9th then goes down in history as the first time mankind has experienced 400ppm in our atmosphere and that I am afraid is something we collectively should be ashamed about. What we need now is concerted global action to ensure we are not in coming years reporting 420 ppm or worse. I think the time has come for governments across the globe and in particular the big emitters to take positive action to reduce their emissions significantly in the coming years through the rapid deployment of low carbon technology. The time for stalling is over.

To benefit from the gathering of international CCS experts for the IEAGHG members meeting, the Petroleum Technology Research Centre of Regina organised a one day symposium on Canadian and global CCS developments.
After the welcomes by the host Malcolm Wilson(PTRC), Kelly Thabmimuthu (IEAGHG) and the Deputy Minister of the Economy for Saskachewan Kent Campbell, John Gale (IEAGHG) gave an update of CCS project activity around the world. John announced the news that the observatory on Mauna Loa was detecting tat atmposphereic CO₂ levels had reached 400ppm. The first time since the Pliocene era.
Of particular note were the presentations on Canadian activities. Boundary Dam power station is well underway in construction of a post-combustion capture system, which in 2014 will capture 1 million tCO₂ pa for storage in the Aquistore project and use in the Weyburn EOR operation. This is he first full-scale capture plant on a coal power station in the world. A new CO₂ pipeline 41 miles long will be constructed within the next year for this.
Also of interest was the development of CO₂-EOR for the heavy oil reservoirs, and the monitoring programme with international collaboration for the Aquistore project.
Canada also led the world with the first standard for CO₂ geological storage (CSA Z741) and are leading in the international work of ISO to develop international standards.
Shell’s Quest project is also under construction, taking CO₂ from an oil upgrader plant to store in a deep saline formation.
Also of note is Cenovus’s Weyburn CO₂-EOR project, which although the monitoring research project (IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project) completed in 2012 with the production of a best practice guide, Cenovus will continue monitoring the CO₂ flood with 3D seismic and testing new techniques in the overburden.
The symposium was sponsored by Stantec, Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy, Schlumberger Carbon Services, and Suncor Energy.

The 43rd meeting of the IEAGHG Executive committee was held in Regina, SA, Canada and was hosted by NRCan and PTRC our Canadian members. The meeting provided the IEAGHG team the opportunity to present an update on the work we have been undertaking in the last 6 months. We presented updates on 5 studies we are close to reporting to get members comments prior to publication. These included: a study on future technological change for post combustion capture plant, a study on the options available to mitigate migration in storage reservoirs, a study on dehydration of CO₂, a study on bio methane and CCS and a review of the status of mitigation of Non CO₂ Greenhouse Gases. In addition the team presented updates on the development of the Monitoring Tool on the website, it's ISO standard activities and the outcome of the RISKMAN guideline activity that we participated in.

Members selected the studies that IEAGHG will start in the coming months which included: a study looking at process control options for PCC, a study in oxy gas fired turbines, a study on public perception of CO₂ pipelines, a study on CO₂adsorption processes for natural gas and finally a study to look at options for CCS in the pulp and paper industry.

Members also found the time to debate the new EC communication on CCS and select the venue for the GHGT-13 conference in 2016 but for now that remains a secret.

Tuesday 6th May 2013 and as part of our 43rd Executive Meeting we are visiting the Boundary Dam power plant in southern Saskatchewan , Canada. Boundary dams unit 3 is undergoing a major refit with a new boiler and steam turbines being added plus the worlds first full flow post combustion capture unit. Whilst currently under construction they will begin capturing CO₂ in October 2013, well ahead of any other CCS demonstration plant in the world.

I guess what struck me the most was the sheer size of the capture facility with its SO2 and CO₂ amine scrubbing units using Cansolv technology and the gas compressors unit by Mann Turbo. I remember visiting the University of Reginas pilot at Boundary Dam many years ago and thought that was a piece of kit. Recently I visted Technology Centre Mongstad on its opening and was impressed by the size of the scrubbing tower on the Aker 10MW pilot at Mongstad. However nothing prepared me for Boundary Dam and this is only a 115Mwe unit . The FGD unit is actually slightly smaller than the CO₂ absorber tower with the Desorber tower of similar stature all poking out above the building cladding into the sunny skies they are an impressive sight. The single Mann gas compressor was enormous I recall the gas compressors at Dakota gasification there I think they had two to do a much smaller duty. It is a feat of German engineering that Mann Turbo can design with such confidence a single CO₂ compressor train for this unit.

I look forward to hearing this plant is operational in October and hope to come back and see it operating in the future. With some trepidation I also look forward to seeing the next scale up of a PCC unit on a 500mw or 660 mew boiler.

From 15^th to 18^th April 2013 I visited EnBW’s amine scrubbing pilot plant at Heilbronn in Germany. After a warm welcome from Dr Sven Unterberger and his team who are operating the pilot plant I was invited to tour the facilities. The Heilbronn Combined Heat and Power Plant has a total electric output of 1010 MW_el and also supplies 320 MW_th for district heating.  The boilers are equipped with state-of-the-art flue gas treatment systems such as DeNO_x, ESP and wet FGD.

A flue gas slip stream of 1500 Nm³/h (representing about 0.05 % of the total flue gas volume of Unit 7) is taken downstream of the FGD and passed on to the CO₂ capture plant, which is designed to capture 300 kg CO₂/h (or 7.2 t CO₂/d) at a capture rate of 90 %. The pilot plant was constructed by German engineering company atea Anlagentechnik GmbH as an “IP-free” design and started operation on 1^st March 2011. The layout includes a pre-scrubber that cools the flue gas to about
30 °C and reduces the SO₂ concentration to a minimum by adding NaOH. Both the pre-scrubber and absorber are made of polypropylene and contain random packing of polypropylene. Due to structural requirements the absorber, which has a total height of about 40 m, is reinforced with glass-fibre plastics. The desorber in contrast is made of stainless steel with a random packing of stainless steel as well.

During my stay there was a test campaign with 30 % MEA as a solvent in order to investigate the performance of the capture plant under different loads and dynamic load change conditions of the power plant. Another important issue that has been examined in parallel is the degradation of the solvent. In a preceding test campaign a sudden increase in inorganic and organic acid anions as well as dissolved metals after about 900 hours of operations was observed. This was accompanied by a typical discoloration of the solvent that is frequently reported for MEA in the literature. In order to address the solvent degradation issue and minimise the concentration of degradation products EnBW is currently testing different reclaiming technologies at the pilot plant. From this, a solvent management system will be developed and approved.

Results of the first year’s testing programme were presented at GHGT-11 and will be soon published in the conference proceedings Energy Procedia.

For further information on the pilot plant please contact:

Dr Sven Unterberger

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

Jasmin and I from the IEAGHG Capture and Integration team attended a course on ‘An Introduction to the options for Power Generation’ at E.ON Engineering Academy, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station on 8-12 April 2013. This course focuses on developing understanding of various power generation options available in the current economic and environmentally conscious climate. The course was given by very experienced and knowledgeable Mr G. Tonge, who has worked several decades at E.ON in different areas of coal, gas and nuclear power generation. The course covers technical and operation details of different type of power generation technologies such as coal, gas, nuclear, combined heat and power, wind, hydro, biomass, solar, geothermal, wave and tide. Moreover during this course topics related to UK electricity market, environmental considerations, economics and plant choice were also covered. I have personally found this course very useful in developing in depth understanding on power plant operation and the electricity market.

Yesterday, my manager commented that he didn’t understand social media, and that got me thinking. Over recent years, IEAGHG have grown into social media usage, but in many ways we are still very young in this new communications medium. The question addressed by this blog is what does social media achieve that conventional press releases and publications don’t?

The answer… well, that’s debatable. I think that they actually achieve different things, but that’s because they are aimed at different audiences. Also, the different social media options each have their own distinct advantage; if we are looking to disseminate a new report, then LinkedIn would probably be the best option. If we were sending out a reminder of a conference or network deadline, then Twitter would be more appropriate. If we wanted to facilitate discussion between a specific interest group, then setting up a group on FaceBook would be the option of choice. That said, LinkedIn hosts a lot of discussions too, but in my experience these tend to be between more informed experts, whereas FaceBook hosts more discussions involving less informed but equally interested members of the public.

So why should we use social media? Well that’s a much simpler question. In this day and age, we need to embrace all the options available. As CCS becomes more ‘mainstream news’ and the public become more aware of the intricacies of this science, then we need to be more publicly visible; we have a lot of information and without using social media, IEAGHG is not going to become well known as a valued source of information.

IEAGHG is impartial, we include an expert review of all of our work, and make these reports freely available after a period of members exclusivity. We are therefore well placed to occupy a space as an informed, yet impartial source of information for the general public… but not if we are not known. Social Media is often a first stop for people wishing to find out about a topic – you hear there is a CCS project being proposed in your area, you take to Twitter to find out what people are saying about it, or you go to FaceBook to see if there are any groups discussing the project. If IEAGHG are on these sites, openly discussing CCS, and facilitating access to our information, then we will become known, we will become useful to a greater number of audiences, and we will gain a reputation for reliable, impartial information and because of this, IEAGHG occupies a unique situation whereby we can make a difference to the public acceptance of CCS, and by actively engaging the public, it has been shown that acceptance is more likely.

This doesn’t sit well with some; in the scientific community, the more traditional method for communications is to not communicate until things are certain, defined, and results confirmed. Unfortunately, opponents to CCS do not share these values, and will take to social media, conventional media and any other means with un-supported claims and miss-reported facts and this is what will be found and read by interested parties. By remaining silent, the scientific community appears to have no answer to often false accusations by opposition groups. A lack of communication can be more damaging than anything else; look at Barendrecht in the Netherlands, a lack of early communication led to a large public opposition that ultimately acted as a show-stopper for the project. The knock-on effects for CCS in the Netherlands have been drastic and far-reaching.

By proactive early public engagement, this situation can be avoided. Looking at the QICS project in Scotland, where a planned release of CO₂ underneath the seabed was undertaken, early communications and engagement actually resulted in the local community positively supporting the project, and using it to local advantage as a tourist attraction. This type of engagement matters, and can really make a difference.

So Social Media is important, getting information out there is important, and IEAGHG and other groups should take heed and learn to communicate by any and all means if we want to see CCS deployed at a commercial scale.

 

Good news, bad news, and good news.

Good news. COP-18 and CMP-8 have concluded after a marathon 36-hour final session, with the agreement for a second Commitment Period for the Kyoto Protocol. This will run from 2013 to the end of 2020. This entails new legally-binding emissions commitments for the developed countries remaining in the Kyoto Protocol, notably the 27 EU Member States, Australia, Norway, Ukraine, and developing countries are included but without emission targets.

Bad News. The emissions targets are not high enough and not on enough countries to significantly reduce global emissions. Some major emitting developed countries will not be in; USA, Canada, Japan, Russia and New Zealand.

Good news. All this is significantly better than no second Commitment Period and no countries with emissions targets.

Whilst many think the emission targets for individual countries are set too low, this does keep the global framework for emissions reductions and emissions trading mechanism (eg CDM) operational while countries make progress on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) towards a legally-binding agreement for 2015 for all 194 UNFCCC countries (including USA and China). There is also some limiting of the carry-over of AAUs (hot-air).

Unexpected difficulties arose in the higher-level negotiations over the issue of compensation from developed countries for ‘loss and damage’ to developing countries as a result of climate change (caused mostly by their emissions). The potentially un-limited nature of this ringing alarms bells for some.

CCS outcomes

Earlier on the Friday, going into the final Plenaries, (which ran late, get postponed for further negotiations behind the scenes etc) we find that the CDM text going for approval to CMP has some material on CCS, some of it new:

“45 Welcomes the work undertaken by the Executive Board to adopt relevant documents regarding carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological formations as clean development mechanism project activities;

46. [Encourages project developers to continue to develop and submit, for consideration by the Executive Board, methodologies relating to all project types underrepresented in the clean development mechanism [, including carbon dioxide capture and storage,] to facilitate the registration of such projects;] “

Paragraph 46 was subsequently dropped. And then the Decision from SBSTA to defer any further consideration of transboundary projects and a Global Reserve until SBSTA 45 (expected 2016).

47. Decides that the eligibility under the clean development mechanism of carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological formations project activities which involve the transport of carbon dioxide from one country to another or which involve geological storage sites that are in more than one country and the establishment of a global reserve of certified emission reduction units for carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological formations project activities shall be considered by Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice at its forty-fifth session;

48. Also decides that while carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological formations project activities which involve the transport of carbon dioxide from one country to another or which involve geological storage sites that are in more than one country would merit inclusion under the clean development mechanism, more practical experience of carbon dioxide capture and storage project activities in geological formations under the clean development mechanism would be beneficial;” (note the paragraph numbers changed in the final version)

Technology Mechanism

The Technology Mechanism was partly operationalised, with the appointment of a consortium lead by UNEP to operate the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) for five years. It is anticipated that CCS will be included in the range of technologies assisted by this network.

Concluding thoughts

The world of climate change mitigation took significant steps forward, and CCS is now imbedded as a validated option to reduce emissions in both developed and developing countries. Much work is still to be done, and experience to be gained, and capacity to be built, but the building blocks for  climate change mitigation are in place and prospects for CCS exist with all of them.

Tim Dixon 9 Dec 2012

 

 

As the negotiations inch along towards agreement for a second Commitment Period for the Kyoto Protocol and for the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) there is a realisation that although CCS negotiations have concluded, there has been a lot of other activity on CCS at this COP.

There are four 'official' UNFCCC Side-events on CCS and four 'unofficial' events. IEAGHG have presented or spoken at four so far, on Monday presenting our work on the Iron and Steel sector. By comparison at Durban there was only one 'official' Side-event on CCS (ours). Especially interesting at the Side-events here were the talks by Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia on their CCS project activities, with several pilot projects now in development in the region, supported by R&D programmes. Bio-CCS continues to gain prominence and interest, and the IEAGHG studies in this area are proving a valuable resource.

The need for information on CCS has been demonstrated both in the negotiations (eg where one negotiator questioned the basic risk, safety and uncertainty of CCS) and at the booths of CCS-related organisations which have been more popular than ever being visited by those seeking information on CCS. Also, there was a media-release here yesterday by seven green NGOs (ENGOs) who collaborated to produce a paper advocating actions to encourage CCS (see http://www.engonetwork.org ).

Victoria Osbourne on the University of Texas/IEAGHG Stand

The results of last week's negotiations on CCS were approved by SBSTA Plenary at 11:06pm on Saturday, and will go before CMP Plenary some time this Friday evening. Some observers are expressing dissappointment at the two CCS issues on transboundary and Global Reserve being deferred for four years, not realising that resolution of transboundary issues was always likely to take some time. For example, the London Convention, a large treaty which moves faster than UNFCCC because of its design and double pressure of ocean acidification as well as climate change, still took three years to reach a legal transboundary CCS amendment and another three years to make any further progress on the outstanding transboundary issues. The Global Reserve deferring is a different matter, there being no good arguments made for it now or to revive it in four years, but good arguments made for it to have been taken off the agenda now.

Ministers have now arrived, and the pressure is on to reach agreements before the COP concludes at the end of the week.

 

 

Some more news from COP-18… Update 30th November 2012.

CCS CDM: Two sets of negotiating meetings have taken place on the transboundary projects and Global Reserve of CERs issue; the second of these concluded yesterday. Text was agreed that consideration of both is to be postponed until SBSTA-45 (in 2016) to allow time to learn from CCS projects. This text will now go to SBSTA and then CMP for approval. Whilst this isn’t a bad result in itself for the time-being (very few wanted the Global Reserve and there were good arguments against it) it isn’t as good as the initial version proposed by the Chairs which would have removed the Global Reserve permanently, recognising the adequacy provided by the existing modalities and procedures (also described as “providing robust environmental protection” by many here).

Side-events: The UNFCCC Side-event of CCSA/University of Texas/IEAGHG on CCS Education on Tuesday went well, was well attended (the most attendees of any CCS event here so far) and with a high level of interest. IEAGHG presented on the Summer School Series. At the booths, IEAGHG publications have been in high demand and almost exhausted whilst still in the first week. Next week, at a Bellona event on “The necessity of CCS – Looking beyond fossil power” on Monday 3rd Dec (09:30-11:00), IEAGHG will present on the Iron and Steel Industry work.

CCS project survey: Separately, the UNFCCC Secretariat would like to assess the level of interest and potential for CCS CDM projects, and so are undertaking a survey, details and links below, please respond by 28 December if you are interested.

The UNFCCC secretariat is undertaking work to estimate the number of methodological and project registration requests related to CCS CDM project activities that might be submitted in 2013 and beyond. In this regard the secretariat has prepared a survey and kindly requests that you share this survey with your membership so that potential project participants and developers have an opportunity to provide the secretariat with relevant information.

The survey is open until 28 December 2012.

The link to the survey is https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CCS_Survey_PP.

 

 

 

Attention moves from GHGT-11 held in the home of the Kyoto Protocol to Doha in Qatar, where the future of the Kyoto Protocol is to be negotiated.

The UNFCCC’s COP-18 started in Doha yesterday, with several thousand delegates from over 194 countries. CCS was raised in the SBSTA Plenary yesterday, a negotiating group established to discuss transboundary projects and a global reserve of credits, and the IMO were pleased to announce the progress made at the London Convention earlier this month on agreeing guidelines for transboundary CCS activities subsurface (which involved IEAGHG).

Today there will be a UNFCCC Side-event on CCS Education for Developing Countries (more information below), and IEAGHG will present on the Summer School Series, alongside CCSA, the University of Texas, UK Government ,and the Qatar Shell Science and Technology Centre. It will be at 16:45, Room 6 Hall 5. IEAGHG information is also available on the University of Texas booth (98) and IEA booth.

Also in Doha, the COP-18 Reception was held at the Qatar Sustainability Expo. Of interest here were several displays on CCS, including by Shell and the Qatar Carbonate and Carbon Storage Research Centre (with content from IEAGHG). Of note was an interesting car from Saudi Aramco which is their project to capture CO₂ from vehicle exhausts. Fully operational for 2,000km so far, capturing 10% of the CO₂, the plan is to increase this capture rate to 60%.

 

Side event details:

CCS Capacity Building and Global Status: Educational Opportunities and Lessons Learned

Knowledge transfer, training and educational programs serving Qatar, Asia, and North America, and available to other countries, will be presented by policy, educational and technical experts within the framework of recent developments on the role CCS plays in emission reductions.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 16:45-18:15

Room: Side Event Room 1

Hosts: The University of Texas at Austin and Carbon Capture and Storage Association

Contact: Hilary Clement Olson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Program:

Welcome

Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin

CCS: Current status and future deployment needs

Carbon Capture and Storage Association

Building CCS workforce capacity through teacher professional development and girl-centered educational programs

STORE Program, The University of Texas at Austin

The CCS Summer School Series: 326 alumni from 49 countries and growing

IEAGHG

CCS collaborative capacity and know-how building at Shell

Qatar Shell Science and Technology Centre

UK Government action on CCS in developing countries

UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Doha

 

The 34^th meeting of the London Convention this week in London had a lot to celebrate. This was its 40^th anniversary of protecting the marine environment, so it held a special evening of speeches and video, attended by many Ambassadors from its 87 member countries.

One of the highlights mentioned was how the London Convention reacted to the threats of climate change and ocean acidification by amending the London Protocol to allow and control CO₂ geological storage for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage.

This CCS amendment was adopted in 2006, and ‘CO₂ Specific Guidelines’ were developed on how to permit and undertake such activity whilst ensuring protection of the marine environment. In fact, this CCS amendment and these Guidelines went on to become the basis for OSPAR’s CCS amendment and own guidelines (the convention to protect the North East Atlantic), which themselves formed a significant basis for the EU’s CCS Directive.  So it all started with the London Convention!

IEAGHG has been involved throughout the London Convention’s work on CCS from 2004 to the present day. IEAGHG’s work was used in the extensive work leading up to the 2006 amendment, and used as evidence base in the development of the Guidelines. IEAGHG continued to be involved, participating when the London Convention agreed an amendment to allow export of CO₂ for CCS in 2009, and contributing directly to the subsequent work to revise the Guidelines to cover all transboundary CCS activities (working with the IEA).  On this, there is also reason to celebrate this week as, after three years of work, the revision of the ‘CO₂ Specific Guidelines’ to include subsurface transboundary migration was finally approved and adopted, this being a scenario which is possible now. For export of CO₂ for CCS, while we wait for that amendment to come into force through ratification, further work will look at draft guidance on the permitting arrangements and agreements which will be required between countries.

By coincidence, IEAGHG was to speak in the plenary on the day of the 40^th anniversary celebrations, providing its usual update on IEAGHG work relevant to CCS in the marine environment, in particular from the IEAGHG’s Environmental Assessment Network and Monitoring Network, where great progress is being made particularly in monitoring.

On a personal note, it is reassuring and a pleasure to work in the London Convention with such a body of motivated and professional participants, all their work underpinned by the science from the annual meetings of its Scientific Group, with everyone working hard for the protection of the marine environment. Happy Birthday London Convention!

For more information see  http://www.imo.org/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/46-london-convention-.aspx

Tim Dixon IEAGHG 2 Nov 2012