Carbon Capture in Europe Stalling

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Europe has no new carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects planned or under construction in what is a worrying development to the roll-out of low carbon technologies in the electricity sector.

The finding was announced by the Global CCS Institute in its annual report: The Global Status of CCS: 2013. The Institute praised the current progress but warned that CCS rapidly needs more financial and political support for it to become a commercially viable option.

The news comes just a month after Norway pulled the plug on finishing the world's most advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at the Mongstad oil refinery. The government announced 'a change in direction' with regard to CCS development and said it would no longer finance the continued CCS expansion at the refinery, located northwest of the city of Bergen. It claimed the investment was too risky. For additional information, see September 27, 2013, article - Norway Drops Leading Carbon Capture Project.

Globally, there are 12 large--scale integrated carbon capture and storage projects which are responsible for preventing 25 million tons a year (Mtpa) of greenhouse gases from reaching the atmosphere. Another eight under construction will increase the total to 38 Mtpa by 2016 -- the equivalent of taking up to 18 million cars off European roads -- the Institute claimed.

"Urgent action is required to limit, alleviate and, where possible, reverse the damaging effects of the rise in temperature of our planet," argued Global CCS Institute CEO, Brad Page, on releasing the report in Seoul, South Korea. "Crucially, this means employing, without favour, appropriate climate change mitigation technologies -- and this includes CCS. Notwithstanding recent strong progress, with four additional projects becoming operational since 2012 -- an increase of 50% in one year -- momentum is too slow if CCS is to play its full part in tackling climate change at lowest cost."

He added: "Seventy per cent of CCS proponents agree that policy uncertainty is a major risk to their project. Indeed, ongoing uncertainty about the timing, nature, extent and durability of emissions reduction policies is limiting investment in CCS and stalling its development and deployment. This must be addressed. Of concern is that no new projects were identified in Europe, nor are any under construction. Accordingly, what we need globally are technology--neutral policies that provide sufficient incentives for projects to develop robust long--term business cases and attract the private funding needed to create market conditions conducive to broad-based CCS deployment".

According to the report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that the exclusion of CCS as a technology option in the electricity sector alone would increase mitigation costs by around $2 trillion by 2050, simply because the alternatives to CCS as a low--emissions technology in the electricity sector are more expensive.

"Beyond the electricity sector, it is unlikely that energy--related and process CO2 emissions can be eliminated without CCS," the report noted. "This is because CCS is the only large--scale technology available to make deep emissions cuts in several industrial sectors (such as iron and steel and cement). Industrial sector emissions account for more than 20 per cent of current global CO2 emissions."

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