Coal Industry can Begin Deploying CCS Technology Now

Coal Industry can Begin Deploying CCS Technology Now: WCI Chief

18 March 2009

Published on Platts website

Copenhagen (Platts) - Carbon capture and storage technology has developed to the point where it can now deliver up to 55% of the emission reductions needed to fight global warming worldwide up to 2100, World Coal Institute CEO Milton Catelin said Wednesday on the sidelines of a carbon industry conference.

There is "no solution to climate change without CCS" and--combined with coal-fired power plant operational efficiency improvements--the technology is ready for wide-scale deployment in the EU, US and elsewhere as a means of combating climate change, Catelin said in a presentation at Point Carbon's Carbon Market Insights 2009 conference in Copenhagen.

"The belief in WCI is that the [CCS] technology is ready now. We have all the technology we need to build CCS power projects. There are, of course, first of a type, but we expect the efficiency of the units to improve dramatically after the first tranche of power plants," Catelin said.

Catelin, whose group is the world's leading non-profit organization funded by the coal industry, also said the potential leakage risk from deep saline basins and other types of CO₂ emissions storage sites in places like the Middle East is less than 1% and that, according to the International Energy Agency, there is a potential global storage capacity of as much as 9,000 gigatonnes in deep saline basins alone.

But many experts contend that CCS storage capacity is a moot point if coal-fired power plants equipped with the technology are not built near basin sites that can hold the amount of gas being produced, and that governments will have to build costly pipelines as a means of indirectly funding low-emissions electricity production.

Catelin said CCS pipelines are "a major area of concern" and are an area where "major government action" is needed. "Pipelines in Europe will need to cross national borders with a spine running down Europe connecting with smaller feeder pipes. But this is not unusual, this is what happens in the gas industry at the moment and oil industry," he said. "It's going to require government subsidies."

Catelin, however, said he believes the costs will be worth it. "If I find anything frustrating it's that governments for 15 to 20 years have been telling us what a crisis climate change is. When the financial crisis comes along, they discover trillions of dollars to invest in the banks," he said. "If climate change is a crisis, government should be investing a fraction of that in climate change, and maybe if we had a fraction of the money we have today to spend then on climate change we wouldn't have a climate change problem."

Catelin also said he is satisfied with EU efforts to date to fund development in CCS technology as the US government was set to do last year through the FutureGen power project, which was eventually killed by the US Energy Department due to spiralling costs. "The EU is already doing FutureGen-like projects ... they're a FutureGen equivalent," he said.

"What happened to FutureGen wasn't an accounting error. I believe it was a decision by an energy secretary in the United States to kill a project he didn't like because he was a nuclear enthusiast," Catelin added in reference to a recent US Government Accountability Office report that concluded the Bush administration miscalculated FutureGen's expected costs. "I think FutureGen will now go ahead. I think [Obama administration advisor] Carol Browner ... has been told to make FutureGen a reality, and I think Europe is doing the right thing in agreeing to start up 10 to 12 [CCS] demonstration projects."

Catelin also said that while the US "has everything ready to go" in the international race to win the near-zero CO₂ emissions power plant competition, he said China will likely be the successor in creating the first viable plant and that companies and the Chinese government will take the lead in sharing high-end CCS technology with the rest of the world. "For years we've been talking about exporting technology to China, and we may be in a position in Europe of being supplicants and asking for technology from China," he said.

Platts contact details: Russell Dinnage, russell_dinnage@platts.com