New Report from GCCSI

Ecoal December 2009, Volume 69

Earlier this year, the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) commissioned LEK Consulting to characterise an ideal global portfolio of CCS projects and develop a rationale for the GCCSI to support these projects. LEK Consulting went on to publish its report last month outlining its recommendations.

The portfolio included in the report "An Ideal Portfolio of CCS Projects and Rationale for Supporting Projects" was developed in terms of the range of capture, transport and storage solutions and the industries that they should be applied to. The report focuses on the three largest emitting sectors; power generation, iron and steel, and cement.

Capture

An initial portfolio of a minimum of 26 capture projects is proposed, which would be broken down as follows:

• 17 in power generation covering pre-combustion, oxy-combustion PC, oxy-combustion CFB and post-combustion with chemical solvents.
• Three each for the iron, steel and cement industries with an additional three for other lower emitting industries including gas extraction.

In the power sector, the four key capture technologies would be applied to a range of fuels including lignite, bituminous and sub-bituminous coals, and natural gas. The report highlights the need for at least one project to cover each fuel and technology combination. The need to focus on retrofitting solutions is highlighted by the earmarking of seven post-combustion projects. This initial batch of demonstration projects should start operations no later than 2015-17 with a view to large-scale commercial deployment from around 2020 onwards.

Transport

The report points out that many of the transport solutions required are already mature and recommends the following options to be covered in the portfolio:

• Onshore pipelines
• Offshore pipelines
• A backbone pipeline to facilitate the development of capture clusters
• Large-scale shipping solutions
• Cross border pipelines to demonstrate the effectiveness of regulatory structures
  

Large-scale shipping of CO₂ is highlighted as the one transport area in which technical developments may still need to occur.

Storage

The need for further site characterisation to be carried out in many regions is acknowledged and the report proposes the inclusion of six storage configurations in the CCS portfolio:

• Structured and unstructured deep saline aquifers
• Gas fields (depleted and for enhanced gas recovery )
• Oil fields (depleted and for enhanced oil recovery)

Geographic Distribution

The report goes on to propose a geographic distribution for the project portfolio: 60% of projects in North America, Europe and China; 15% of projects in Japan and Australia; and 25% of projects in India, Russia/CIS, other Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

Role of GCCSI

The report also makes recommendations on the role of the GCCSI in these projects. It outlines the role in which the GCCSI should operate in the context of global efforts to accelerate CCS. Acknowledging that the focus of the GCCSI may overlap with other organisations - such as the IEA, IEA GHG Programme and the CSLF Technical and Policy Groups - the report recommends two niche roles for the Institute:

• Knowledge exchange - the GCCSI should act as an information hub to facilitate the exchange of information and expertise on a wide range of subjects.
• Targeted funding - the GCCSI should provide funding, both direct and 'in kind', for projects to achieve specific goals.

Overall the report starts to provide a clearer remit for the GCCSI and clarifies the direction that it should be taking. It seeks to establish a clear framework for the GCCSI's future work programme and differentiate it from other organisations working internationally on CCS issues.