Background

The IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG) was actively involved in the development of the IPCC[1] Special Report on Capture and Storage (SRCCS).  Three of its then Programme team were directly involved in 5 out of the 9 chapters.  The chapters concerned were: 1 (Introduction), 2 (Sources of CO₂), 3 (Capture), 4 (Transport) and 5 (Geological Storage).  In addition, IEA GHG’s technical study reports were drawn upon by many of the chapters as reference material for their chapters, as were the proceedings and peer reviewed journals from the GHGT conference series that IEA GHG organizes.  Because of its active involvement in the construction of the report IEA GHG was considered to be well placed to comment on the findings of this report.

IEA GHG has, therefore, undertaken a review of the gaps in knowledge that were listed in the IPCC SRCCS.  It must be noted early on that that the IPCC SRCCS did not undertake an extensive gap analysis on CCS, this is discussed further later.  The aim of the review was twofold:

1. To assess the significance of the gaps in knowledge identified within the IPCC SRCCS.  The gaps have been considered against a broad objective of their significance in terms of bringing CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) technology closer to wide scale implementation

2. To assess key research needs that are identified in the IPCC SRCCS