Carbon capture and storage: “Speed up, please”
“The need to deal with the climate change threat quickly does not allow us the luxury of waiting until all the aspects have been looked at and agreed upon. It’s time to put global warming in the basement,” says Elisabeth Tørstad, DNV’s Cleaner Energy director.
The world has to make important, long-term decisions on an uncertain basis, and our common challenge is: how do we make intelligent choices and how do we manage the associated risks?
DNV has a long history of working in the energy and environmental sector, and is now increasing its focus on sustainable energy and CO2 capture and storage. This focus area is a good match for the challenges posed by the recent EU summit’s commitment to a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Elisabeth Tørstad is the first to admit that the 20% target for CO2 emission reduction is a huge challenge.
Says Ms Tørstad: “A number of policies and the industrial implementation of these need to be put in place in order to meet this target. Most of these suffer from a lack of maturity in terms of technology, economy, infrastructure or common acceptance criteria.”
She is convinced that the key in this context is to obtain a common, transparent decision-making basis in terms of acceptance criteria and qualification methods – all the way from policy making to industry implementation.
A sustainable energy portfolio includes the use of fossil fuels, and reducing emissions from power plants using fossil fuels through carbon capture and storage is a vital tool for meeting the target. But carbon capture and storage also pose challenges.
Stockpiling for 100 or 1,000 years?
“On the one hand, we have technological questions related to such storage. What kind of requirements are we to stipulate for the storage utilities? How much leakage can be allowed, if any, and what is the definition of long-term or permanent storage; is it 100 years or 1,000 years?” she asks.
“On the other hand, we have questions related to ownership and responsibility. Who is the owner of the problem and the solutions, and who will provide guarantees that no leakage will take place?”
While pointing at the range of uncertainties, she underlines that we must avoid ending up as a lame duck because of all the unanswered questions. In order to implement carbon capture and storage at the pace needed to enable a significant impact from 2030 and onwards, policymakers need to support research and full large-scale testing and to provide sufficient long-term investment incentives.
“DNV’s aim in this picture is to put uncertainties and the risk factors at stake in perspective and establish a common understanding and trust between the parties involved,” says Ms Tørstad.
Understanding and managing risk is a prerequisite for being able to make decisions and, when several parties are involved, the decision basis and risk picture need to be transparent and well understood by all stakeholders.
“We aim at enabling involved parties to make the right decisions, and at moving decisions forward, thus shortening the time span from policy making to industry implementation,” she says.
40 clean people
Together with her team of 40 ‘clean engineers and consultants’, she is employed in several exciting projects with international clients – within the whole CO2 value chain of capture, transportation and storage. DNV is currently establishing acceptance criteria and standards for CO2 capture and storage, both in Europe and the USA. Her team is also working with Gassnova, the Norwegian centre for gas power technology, developing good practice for evaluating different technical solutions for capturing CO2.
It has been questioned why gas-fired power plants are not already equipped with capture devices, as this technology is known and established. The reason for this is a combination of political priorities, technology and economy. Most of the few CO2 capture plants in operation today are significantly smaller than the ones planned in Norway, and none are directly comparable on a technical level. In addition to this, the technology must offer high energy efficiency in order to minimise the energy used on the capture process.
“Today’s technology can only to a certain extent be used in capturing CO2 from medium or large size gas-fired or coal-fired power plants,” explains Ms Tørstad.
Geological storage of CO2 is recognised as one of the best solutions for limiting the climate change problem. Norway has been using the reservoirs in the North Sea for storing CO2 for many years.
“In my opinion this kind of storage has the potential to be safe and good,” she says.
Worldwide attention
The Americans are also investigating geological storage options. Established in 2003, WESTCARB (West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership) is one of seven research partnerships exploring regional carbon sequestration opportunities and conducting pilot-scale validation tests.
“DNV is developing new verification systematics for these onshore projects,” explains Ms Tørstad.
Subsea storage, however, has its advantages because possible leakage will not cause global heating, since CO2 will dissolve in water. On the other hand, CO2 release on a large scale would have a negative impact on the maritime environment.
There are different views on subsea storage, but Norway and Great Britain are in favour of using the North Sea basin for storage, while other countries are aiming at storage in onshore geological structures and man-made constructions.
“Regardless of which solution the different nations choose, we have not much time to lose,” she concludes.
Text: Ole Magnus Grønli
日付: 08 June 2007