From left to right: Jose Figueroa (U.S. Department of Energy), and George Koperna (Advances Resources International), both co-chairs of the Carbon Management Technology Conference (CMTC)

I was fortunate this year of being able to attend the Carbon Management Technology Conference (CMTC-2019) in Houston (15th-18th July). It was attended by around 200 stakeholders from academia, industry, and research organisations.


The agenda of CMTC2019 was impressive and the arrangement of sessions was different to other CCS events, including more plenary presentations and very specific technical sessions. Moreover, the attendees had the opportunity to visit the NET Power facilities and see a virtual tour on the Petra-Nova project.


Collaborations, tests centres and large CCS projects had a significant role in the conference. One of the most important topics was policies, covering the 45Q and LCFCs to incentive the implementation of CCS in U.S.


The plenary session was opened by Greg Kennedy, who described every aspect of the Petra Nova facilities and its performance. Later, Stephen Winberg, from the U.S. Department of Energy, updated the attendees on the current and future DOE investments on research projects, and introduced the concept of the "coal plant of the future", what opens and maintains a very interesting pathway for CCS in coal power plants, which can be combined with other measures such as modularization, smaller size, high efficiency, advanced combustion and able to respond to the grid needs. In this line, Janet Gellici, from the National Coal Council, also introduced the concept of new markets for coal. In regard to the large CCS projects, we had two speakers linked to the NET Power project, Bill Brown, who presented the last updates on the plant, and Adam Geoff, who presented the policies perspective. Other speakers presented overviews on collaborative initiatives, as Anthony Ku from NICE, and Frank Morton, from Southern Company, while Gay Wyn Quadance, from Solid Carbon Products, focused her presentation on a pathway to obtain profitable solid products from the captured CO2.


During the technical sessions, speakers presented more specific information on carbon management technologies and their potential to reduce costs, what opened interesting discussions on the next generation of CCUS projects.


I was invited as a plenary speaker to present the IEAGHG technical programme. Linked to the status of CCUS technologies, I presented the recent IEAGHG studies on CCS for power (the role of CCS in the electricity grid, capture rates and energy models, and fuel cell systems) and industrial sectors (cement and iron and steel industries), together with crosscutting issues such as water usage, and emerging CO2 capture technologies.


I would like to thank the organisers, Jose Figueroa (U.S. Department of Energy), and George Koperna (Advances Resources International) for their great coordination, support, and such a great output. The next CMTC will take place in two years and I am looking forward to seeing a higher CCS deployment not only in USA but worldwide.