Jan 16 2012: Growing doubts in Europe on future of carbon storage. Two carbon capture and storage projects in Germany and Britain were canceled last quarter, and many of the remaining projects will probably share that fate this year, imperiled by a mix of regulatory objections, a lack of money, public opposition to the possible geological risks and broader uncertainty about strategies to slow climate change. link

Nov 10 2011: FutureGen 2.0 – another setback. The leading American effort to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants has hit a stumbling block that could imperil the project. The Midwestern power company that was to be the host for the project said because of its financial situation, it cannot take part as promised, although it has not told them exactly what it will do. The federal government promised the project $1 billion, or roughly 80% of its costs, on the condition that the money be spent by the end of 2015. That’s a tight time frame for developing a technology that has never been used on a commercial scale, the participants said. link

August 2011: Europe’s largest CCS project halted. link

• Investing in carbon storage
• Problems and the case against CCS
• Costs of CCS
  
• Natural carbon sinks
  
• How CCS would work

August 2011: U.S. invests again in major CCS scheme. Just a few weeks after American Electric Power abandoned plans to build a $668m CCS facility, the US government stepped up a gear this week, with the start of construction on the government's first industrial-scale scheme with $141m of public money and another $66.5m from private sector sources. The plant in Decatur, Illinois, could be operational in 2013, and capture and store one million tonnes of CO2 per year to be held 7,000 feet beneath the surface in the saline Mount Simon Sandstone formation. Another $41m is allocated to 16 more projects to focus on developing technologies capable of capturing at least 90% of CO2 produced, as well as reducing the added costs at power plants to no more than a 35% increase in the cost of electricity produced. link

June 2011: CCS begins with limited storage. Southern Company utility announced a 25-megawatt carbon capture and storage facility in Alabama. Located near Mobile, the CCS facility is the world's largest for a coal-fired generating power plant. It will capture about 150,000 tons of CO2 annually for permanent underground storage in a deep saline geologic formation,  the equivalent of emissions from 25 megawatts of electricity generation. link

June 2011: After 10 years of development, CCS technology is on the point of large-scale deployment. A new global market is opening up, from which Europe is well positioned to benefit given its technological lead. The findings of a detailed study have shown that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is efficient and cost competitive. In a series of demonstrations, CCS was shown to capture and sequester 90% of the emitted carbon dioxide. link

April  2011: Saskatchewan plans world's largest CCS project. The world's largest commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project has been given the go-ahead in Canada. The $1.24bn project in Saskatchewan will see CCS technology constructed next to the ageing 824 MW Boundary Dam power station operated by state utility SaskPower. Construction on the project will begin immediately, and the plant should be capable of capturing around one million tonnes of CO2 every year when completed in 2014. link

November 2010:  German engineering giant, Siemens, said it is close to a practically zero emission carbon capture technique.  The first phase in a pilot facility at the 2GW Staudinger coal-fired plant in Germany, operated for over 3,000 hours with an efficiency over 90%.  link

August 2010: Global consortium plans breakthrough project in Britain. A global consortium led by British clean energy pioneer B9 Coal will develop a 500-megawatt breakthrough project that will establish Britain as a world leader in CCS technology. The project will employ AFC Energy’s alkaline fuel cells and Linc Energy’s underground coal gasification process. The coal gasification technology creates syngas, which then undergoes a cleanup process that separates the gas into streams of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is used to power fuel cells, while the carbon dioxide is captured and prepared for transport and storage.    link

August 2010: New twist for "FutureGen" project. The US Department of Energy yesterday awarded $1 billion to a pioneering near-zero emission carbon capture and storage project. Dubbed "FutureGen2" it replaces long-standing plans to build an experimental coal-fired plant which would capture and store CO2 underground. link   (Aug. 13: However a small town in Illinois has pulled out of the controversial project raising questions about where the carbon emissions captured will be stored - link) 

June 2009: Recent global action to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is unprecedented. New project funding announced last month in the European Union, Canada, Australia and the United States is building momentum for accelerating the use of CCS to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The G8’s goal of 20 demonstrations announced by 2010 – a goal that once seemed insurmountable – could be within reach.  In Australia, the federal government allocated USD$2 billion to build between two and four coal-fired power plants, each generating up to 1,000 MW, that have CCS capabilities. This funding action came shortly after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the formation of the $70 million, investor-backed Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.  World Resources Institute.          

September 2011: CS floundering world-wide. In Beijing, delegates including the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, heard  that the global temperature is on course to rise by 3.5C, due to poor progress both on carbon capture and storage, and on acceptance of a carbon price and other carbon-cutting efforts. Projects to capture and bury a major chunk of that are behind schedule and finding it harder to secure funds. According to the IEA, global energy demand has more than doubled in the past 40 years and even with the most favourable assumptions will grow another 35% by 2035, which will take carbon dioxide emissions above 35 gigatonnes per year. To reach the 2C goal, the IEA estimates there will have to be 1,500 large-scale CCS projects around the world by 2035. However, only 74 have been announced, and the trend is in the wrong direction. "We're seeing a decline in new projects due to a softening global economy and an uncertain carbon price," said Brad Page, head of the Australia-based Global CCS Institute. link

July 2011: Future for carbon capture looks dimmer. American Electric Power shelves plans for a commercial-scale carbon capture and sequestration project that was a centerpiece of the federal government's so-called Clean Coal Initiative. So far, no commercial-scale CCS plants are in operation in the US, and the technology is beginning to look more and more economically unfeasible. link

October 2011: £1bn flagship carbon capture scheme is cancelled. Britain's efforts to fight climate change suffered an embarrassing setback when the Government abandoned plans for the UK's first coal-fired power plant fitted with technology to capture and store carbon emissions. The flagship project at Longannet fell apart after the consortium planning to build it, headed by ScottishPower and including Shell and the National Grid, demanded considerably more investment than the £1bn which the Government had set aside for the scheme. link

May 2011: Why CCS viability is daunting. At the 10th annual Conference on Carbon Capture and Sequestration in Pittsburgh (PA)  it did not come as much of a surprise when the chief executive of one of the largest utility companies in the United States questioning the viability of carbon-storage ventures in the next few years. Michael Morris, chief executive of American Electric Power said that the energy industry needs a signal from politicians in Washington DC. He believes that with time, industry can surmount the technical issues, but it is not a cheap proposition. To keep CO2 emissions below 450 parts per million by 2050, an oft-cited target associated with a roughly 50% chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees, would involve 3,200 projects sequestering some 150 gigatonnes of CO2, roughly 70 times the United States’ total carbon emissions from electricity generation in 2009.  link

January 2011:  Canadian CCS test site leaking and dangerous. Scientists are questioning the most damning evidence that a high profile carbon capture and storage project in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, is leaking and dangerous. The finding casts doubt on claims by industry and researchers that the project is safe, and that carbon dioxide can't escape from its reservoir 1.4 km below the earth. Weyburn is considered a global test case for carbon capture and storage. link

November 2010: Risks of storage found at potential CCS sites. A year-long analysis of core samples from four drinking water aquifers by Duke University researchers showed that the potential for contamination from  underground storage at potential CCS sites could pose risks from leaks. link

September 2010: New study suggests CCS technology in Europe doomed. Innovative carbon-trapping technology might barely get past the testing phase in Europe after the economic crisis and a shift to green power destroys incentives, a new study warns. Massive European investment in renewable energy will reduce demand for carbon emissions permits in 2020, dragging down their price and undermining investment in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), says the report "EU Energy Trends to 2030" by the National Technical University of Athens.  link

December 2010:  Carbon capture project in Queensland, Australia ends. The $4.3 bn coal-fired station was due to open in 2015., but concerns about its viability brought a close to the project as it was not seen as economically viable.   link   

July 2009: The spread of localised resistance is a force that some fear could sink Europe's attempts to build 10 to 12 demonstration projects for CCS by 2015 - link

April 2010: U.S. research paper questions viability of carbon capture and storage.
A new research paper from American academics is threatening to blow a hole in growing political support for carbon capture and storage as a weapon in the fight against global warming. The document from Houston University claims that governments wanting to use CCS have overestimated its value and says it would take a reservoir the size of a small US state to hold the CO2 produced by one power station. The paper concludes that CCS "is not a practical means to provide any substantive reduction in CO2 emissions, although it has been repeatedly presented as such by others."  link   Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute argues the CCS technology faces three potentially insurmountable hurdles: it greatly reduces the output of power plants; pipeline capacity to move the newly captured carbon dioxide is woefully insufficient; and the volume of waste material is staggering. link  The IPCC estimates that power plants would need between 11% and 40% more fuel once CCS technologyy is installed . link  
British geologists and engineers refute carbon capture doubts  - link

June 2010: Potential of "clean coal" to reduce emissions is overstated.  Environmental advocates say they've poked a hole in the popularized belief that capturing and burying CO2 underground is an effective response to the threat of global climate change. Called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the CO2 burial process is also called "clean coal" in industry advertising campaigns.The paper concludes that "CCS cannot deliver significant reductions in time to play a role in the effort of keeping the global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius."   link

May 2009: A serious doubt on the questionability of CCS being viable at all was raised by European energy companies seeking a get-out clause from a 2025 deadline to re-equip coal plants because of unproven technology. Companies, including German-owned groups E.ON and RWE npower, want guarantees that they will not be forced to close their coal-fired plants in 2025 if the technology has not been proven. Failing to receive guarantees, the companies said they will not invest in a new generation of cleaner coal plants. link

The International Energy Agency (IEA)  warned in October 2008 that global CCS spending and activity levels are “nowhere near enough” to achieve an agreed G8 goal to begin developing 20 large-scale demonstration CCS projects by 2010. The IEA said several industrial-size pilot CCS projects planned for Europe, North America and Australia are making “slow progress” and if they fail to materialise soon, it will be at least 2030 before CCS can contribute meaningfully to greenhouse-gas reduction. However China is beginning to lead the way to explore CCS more aggressively and promising even to build cleaner plants at lower costs than conventional plants elsewhere in the world. link

October 2009: The  IEA released a report saying that at least 850 full-scale CCS plants need to be built by 2030 - 100 of them by 2020 - if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change  by halving global carbon emissions by 2050. To date, no plant has been shown to be able to trap and bury the emissions from a power station on a commercial scale.  link

March 9 2011:CCS projects expanding, but at greater cost. Despite soaring costs for the technology, 21 new carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects got underway worldwide during 2010 according to Australia’s Global CCS Institute. The study says 234 CCS projects were active or planned worldwide at the end of 2010, up from 213 at the end of 2009. 77 of these projects are fully integrated, large-scale projects demonstrating the complete CCS value chain. The amount of government funding allocated to individual projects also increased significantly in 2010, and now comes to $40bn in all, the majority of which is being put into 25 individual projects. The overwhelming majority of CCS projects are in Europe and North America. link

August 12 2010: EPA and DOE say "clean coal" not possible without carbon pricing.  
In a new report to President Obama, the agencies claim the main obstacle to deployment of CCS technology is political, not technical.The findings reflect input from 14 federal agencies and departments, as well as hundreds of stakeholders and CCS experts, the report said.  lin

July 22 2009: New study finds CCS very expensive. Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has published a blockbuster study, “Realistic Costs of Carbon Capture.” The paper concludes that First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) carbon capture and storage plants are going to be much more expensive than most people realize.  link

February 10 2010: President Obama has called for the rapid national adoption of "clean coal" technology. Last week, shortly after his budget address, President Obama ordered a high-level task force to deliver a plan within 180 days determining how "to overcome barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years, with the goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects on line by 2016." Obama's executive office memorandum looks like a big victory for the coal industry, which was already handed $3.8 billion in last year's stimulus act for carbon capture and storage (CCS) research and development and deployment. He did not simultaneously order a similar plan for a big roll-out of solar or wind energy to level the playing field. However CCS technology is projected to be notoriously expensive. No full-scale demonstration plant has yet been built, and the pieces of technology that have to fit together add significant cost to operations. Capturing carbon is the first step, and still quite expensive. It also requires the plant to burn about 25% more coal to power the capture process. Special pipelines need to be built to carry the CO2 in a supercritical state to suitable underground injection sites; these must be monitored for leakage and insured against catastrophe; and perhaps royalties must be paid to landowners for the use of underground pore space. link 

When the British CCS project was first mentioned a few years ago the sum of half-a-billion pounds ($725 million) per plant for the extra equipment was mooted. Now the figure estimated is between £1-2 bn ($1.45 - $2.9 bn). As with any CCS costs in America, this would come from taxpayers. Richard Conniff, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, explores why and how the coal industry, through advertising, is promoting ‘Clean Coal’ with the expectation of a carbon-tax seriously affecting their industry under an Obama administration. Conniff writes: “The business logic of this spending pattern is clear: Promoting the illusion that coal is clean, or maybe could be, helps to justify building new coal-fired power plants now.” link

Forests: The world's forests and oceans are natural regulators of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. While forests are regarded as sinks, meaning they absorb carbon dioxide, forests are increasingly being cut down. Eighty percent of the forests that originally covered the earth have been cleared, fragmented, or otherwise degraded: over the past 150 years, deforestation has contributed an estimated 30% of the atmospheric build-up of CO2.link  
See also  Indonesia - Peat adds to problem 

Oceans:   Oceans' ability to sequester carbon diminishing. The globe's oceans are massive carbon sinks: more than a quarter of carbon emissions from humans have been sequestered by the oceans. According to a new study - the first of its kind - an annual accounting of the oceans' intake of carbon over the past 250 years suggests troubling news. According to the study, published in Nature, the oceans' ability to sequester carbon is struggling to keep-up with mankind's ever-growing emissions. link   But it's a complex system; it takes about a thousand years for the ocean to complete one mixing cycle. As a result the ocean simply cannot take up excess carbon fast enough to match the anthropogenic (human-caused) increase. Only 40-50% of the carbon added to the atmosphere since 1800 has dissolved in the ocean, with  28% still remaining in the atmosphere. In summary the oceans have only a limited capacity to absorb anthropogenic carbon dioxide increases. link  

Coastal habitats. Highly endangered coastal habitats are incredibly effective in sequestering carbon and locking it away in soil, according to a new paper in a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The paper attests that coastal habitats - such as mangroves, sea grasses, and salt marshes - sequester as much as 50 times the amount of carbon in their soil per hectare as tropical forest. The key difference between these coastal habitats and forests is that mangroves, seagrasses and the plants in salt marshes are extremely efficient at burying carbon in the sediment below them where it can stay for centuries or even millennia. link

Pre-combustion CCS. Pre-combustion CO2 capture involves removing all or part of the carbon content before burning it. The fuel is processed to produce a gas stream that primarily consists of  CO2 and hydrogen. The CO2 is then captured for storage and the hydrogen is combusted in a conventional gas turbine combined cycle to generate electricity, resulting in a flue gas that only consists of water vapor. But, so far, only a small pilot project (Vatenfalls) in northern Germany has connected all the different stages of the CCS chain together. The pilot is an oxyfuel boiler that can generate 30MW of heat and around 12MW of electricity.  link

One disadvantage of the pre-combustion method is that it cannot be retro-fitted to the older pulversised coal power plants that make up much of the world's installed base of fossil fuel power. It could perhaps be used in natural gas stations, where a synthetic gas is first produced by reacting the methane with steam to produce carbon dioxide and hydrogen. But the economic advantage of this method over post-combustion is yet to be proven. link

First breakthrough - October 2009: The world’s largest carbon capture facility at a coal  factory was introduced Friday by French firm Alstom - the pilot facility catches and contains around 20 megawatts of carbon dioxide from West Virginia’s Mountaineer plant. Since the unit can handle only a portion of Mountaineer’s 1,300 megawatt capacity, the remaining captured carbon dioxide is buried 7,200 feet underground. Philippe Joubert,  the head of Alstom's power division, said "What we are able to prove now, for the people who want to hear, is that the technology is here, there is no longer any doubt." Opponents believe the technology prolongs the life of an industry that is responsible for more of the “greenhouse gas” emissions that add to global warming than any other fuels. Critics also argue it will deplete funding for energy conservation programs or research into renewable fuels: the Sierra Club urged developers to consider the potential effects of pollution to local water and possible seismic activity if West Virginian aquifers are filled with liquid carbon dioxide. link

How would carbon storage work? more

A basic look at "clean coal".  from Ecoseed

The case against clean coal:    http://action.thisisreality.org/about        

Of several alternatives, coal generation with CCS is the least promising as it has some major strikes against. However it does have some advantages as well. CCS technology already builds on the practice in the oil industry of pumping carbon dioxide into oil and gas wells to increase yield by forcing out more oil and natural gas.  

          Pro:

• Taps into a still vast energy store (coal deposits) so can be called upon when needed independent of weather conditions and in response to electric demand.
• Provides jobs and revenue for existing industries and communities (coal mining and coal transport)

         Con:

• Uses an unsustainable fuel – coal will run out.
• Coal mining is often very destructive to the landscape and to coal miners.
• Mass carbon dioxide release from underground is considered unlikely but potentially lethal for people and wildlife as well as defeating the purpose of CCS.
• CCS may not reduce or eliminate the other pollutants associated with coal combustion including mercury emissions, SOx and NOx.
• There are still no functioning plants/it is an experimental technology.
• CCS plants will be much more expensive than existing coal plants, removing one of the prime selling points of coal, i.e. that it is cheap.
• CCS or “clean coal” has been used as a public relations “cover” to justify the building of new coal generating plants without adding the “optional” CCS facilities.

Coal with CCS may have a role in a transition to a more sustainable energy system but it is by design a stop-gap solution.  link