Norway Launching Global Carbon Capture Network

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Norway is putting itself at the forefront of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology by announcing plans to create a global CCS network to accelerate the development of the technology.

The initiative to create an international test centre network for CCS test centres around the world has been announced by CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), which last year became the world's largest carbon capture and storage facility. For additional information, see May 10, 2012, article - Norway Opens Leading Carbon Capture Facility

The key aims of the CCS Test Centre Network are to share knowledge of technological developments, construction and operational experience, establish performance indicators, and promote technology standardisation. The network will also establish a level playing field for technology vendors to reduce costs, plus technical, environmental and financial risks associated with CCS.

"This is absolutely the right time to launch this knowledge sharing network," said Tore Amundsen, CEO of Gassnova and Chairman of CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad. "Every day, in test centres around the world, we see advancements in CCS technology with new experiences, lessons and solutions being developed. However, this knowledge is often not shared because there has been no appropriate forum for doing so. This network will change that for the benefit of everyone."

Located in the northwest of the city of Bergen, the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), is running two CCS projects using different post-combustion carbon-capture techniques, one based on amine and the other on chilled ammonia solvent. The projects will capture and scrub 80,000 tons of the gas from the Mongstad oil refinery and another 20,000 tons of emissions from the 280-megawatt (MW) combined heat and power (CHP) plant located on the site.

The TCM project is owned jointly by state-owned energy company Gassnova SF (Porsgrunn, Norway) (75.1%), Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) (Stavanger, Norway) (20%), Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) (2.44%) and Sasol (NYSE:SSL) (Johannesburg, South Africa) (2.44%).

The key aims of the network are to:

1. Gain public confidence: enabling test centres to build on good practice from around the world and communicate successes to the public and wider CCS community.

2. Address regulator concerns: enabling test centres to individually address concerns of regulators and influence regulatory arenas by using the collective thinking and experience of network members.

3. Improve organisational efficiency: by providing members with a global network of experts and expertise to facilitate mutual problem solving around organisational issues.

4. Safeguard our people: by sharing good practice in Health, Safety and Environment (HSE), to protect staff, assets and the environment.

5. Accelerate technology development: By harmonising the testing requirements, the network will create a level playing field that will help break down barriers to successful uptake of capture technologies.

The move has been welcomed by the Global CCS Institute.

"We congratulate TCM for this excellent initiative that will ensure the latest expertise and knowledge is shared, boosting world capacity to accelerate the commercialisation of the technology," said Global CCS Institute CEO Brad Page. "We are confident that the network will bring benefits that come from the experience of each centre. The knowledge and expertise gained from this new network will have importance not only in Norway but to projects around the world."

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