Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Scientists comment on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) technologies.
Prof Hannah Chalmers, Personal Chair of Sustainable Energy Systems, Institute for Energy Systems, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, said:
“CCUS technologies can play a unique role in tackling carbon dioxide emissions. They can be used at large industrial sites to ensure that most of the carbon dioxide produced by activities like iron and steel production is not emitted to the atmosphere. Instead, the carbon dioxide is permanently stored in geological formations (rocks). In the UK, CCUS projects are developing plans to store carbon dioxide in layers of rock that are deep underneath the sea.
“There is also ongoing work to develop and deploy cost-effective approaches to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air. This provides an important option to respond to the widely reported increases in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere that are causing significant concern.
“There is significant evidence that including CCUS in a mix of technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will be the most cost-effective way to address climate change. Several large-scale projects have been operating in other countries for many years. Experience from these projects is being used to ensure that the CCUS projects that are being developed in the UK are designed to be reliable and cost-effective.”
Dr Stuart Gilfillan, Reader in Geochemistry, University of Edinburgh, said:
What is CCUS technology, how does it work, does it have limitations?
“CCUS stands for Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage, which is a developing technology which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere. It works by capturing CO2 at the point source, transporting it and then burying it for safe storage in rocks over a kilometre below the ground surface. Like any technology, it has pros and cons, and costs more than simply releasing the CO2 directly to the atmosphere, which is currently free. CCUS is the only currently available technology that can directly reduce CO2 emissions from sources like power plants and industrial processes. Given that global temperature records are now being broken on an almost daily basis and yesterday’s announcement of the hottest January on record, it is essential tool in the urgent fight against runaway climate change.
What is the existing evidence around the efficacy of CCUS?
“CO2 capture technology has proven successful in capturing up to 90-95% of CO2 emissions from point of sources from power stations and industrial facilities. Successful examples include the Boundary Dam power station in Saskatchewan, Canada, where a large-scale CCUS unit has been operational since 2014, capturing about 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
“The long-term storage of CO2 is proven by natural CO2 reservoirs around the world and engineered projects like Sleipner in the North Sea, which have been injecting CO2 beneath the seabed since 1996 without significant issues. Research over the past two decades has developed monitoring technologies that can detect and mitigate potential leakage and to ensure that CO2 remains securely buried in rocks deep underground.
What more evidence may be needed to be confident in its applications?
“No more evidence is required, as exemplified by the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), which is an independent body established under the Climate Change Act who advise the government on emissions targets and report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The CCC is clear that CCUS is a critical technology for the decarbonisation of the UK economy, particularly in sectors that are hard to decarbonize directly, such as heavy industry (steel, cement, chemicals) and power generation.
“CCUS is not only as a standalone technology but is an essential part of a broader strategy to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. It compliments energy efficiency, renewable energy deployment, and electrification. CCUS is a clear driver for regional economic development, particularly in regions with suitable geological storage sites and industrial bases, such as the East Coast of Scotland, the Humber region, and North East England, areas that have been ‘left behind’ in recent times.”
Dr Tim Dixon, IEA Greenhouse Gas, Director and General Manager, said:
“Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a necessary technology for the UK and other countries to achieve net-zero, and we need all low-carbon energy technologies. The science case for the role of CCS is provided by the UK’s Climate Change Committee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) and cannot be disputed if climate change is to be taken seriously. The key aspect of CCS is the secure long-term retention of CO2 in deep geological formations, and we have decades of experience in this from around the world. With over 40 large scale projects in operation injecting millions of tonnes every year and many pilot-scale projects, this has allowed us to test the science, the monitoring and the practicalities of geological storage of CO2. Hence CO2 geological storage is a proven technology and the regulations to enable and to ensure that it is safe and secure are based upon this sound science and experience. ”
Professor Paul Fennell FIchemE, Professor of Clean Energy, Imperial College London, said:
“The idea that Carbon Capture and Storage is an unproven technology is simply untrue. There are projects ongoing around the world, and millions of tonnes of CO2 have been safely stored over the last couple of decades. This has not happened in the U.K. because of our sclerotic inability to develop public infrastructure, not because the technology is unproven.”
Dr Greg Mutch, Researcher in Carbon Capture and Storage, Newcastle University, said:
“Carbon capture and storage is a technology that prevents carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, by capturing it and storing it underground in ‘empty’ oil & gas reservoirs or saline aquifers. According to the world’s foremost experts on the subject, gathered to contribute the International Panel on Climate Change, carbon capture and storage processes are necessary to achieve climate change mitigation goals at lowest cost. Without scalable CCS technologies by the end of the century, climate change mitigation will cost between 29 and 297% (mean value 138%) more.[1] Moreover, CCS is predicted to provide tens of thousands of jobs in the UK, add several billion pounds in terms of gross value added per year by 2050,[2] and enable other important technologies (hydrogen production etc) that will come with further jobs and economic value.”
[1] IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5 °C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty, ed. V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H.-O. Portner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P. R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Pean, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J. B. R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M. I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor and T. Waterfield, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
[2] Energy Innovation Needs Assessment Sub-theme report: Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage, Vivid Economics, Carbon Trust, E4tech, Imperial College London, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, Energy Systems Catapult. Commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2019.
Professor Peter Styring, Director of the UK Centre for Carbon Dioxide Utilization, Professor of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry, University of Sheffield, said:
What is CCUS technology, how does it work, does it have limitations?
“CCUS is carbon capture and storage. This has been primarily focused on CCS as the main driver. It aims to capture carbon dioxide from emitters such as power stations and industries. The current technology temperature swing absorption (TSA) using a chemical reaction with an aqueous amine solvent to capture the CO2 from the mixed waste gas and then to release it in a purified form by increased temperature chemical desorption and then further drying and purification to get a gas that can be in theory transported to a site where the gas can be stored underground. It works but at a high energy cost and the production of amine decomposition products that need to be removed and more amine added. It costs a lot!
“Limitations are the energy and financial costs, permitting regulations on solvent disclosure and the large physical footprint. Full system lifecycle analysis is required but this is not always reported.”
What is the existing evidence around the efficacy of CCUS?
“This is not proven using current technologies. The problem is that the current government funded projects use old technologies to achieve CCS and what is actually needed is a step change to new, lower cost more efficient processes such as solid based pressure swing adsorption (PSA). The whole system tends to be simpler and the energy costs and land use is significantly reduced.”
What more evidence may be needed to be confident in its applications?
“Full evaluation of new technologies and rapid acceleration from proof of concept to capture at scale. The Innovate UK funded Flue2Chem project is a good example of how this is being addressed using mid-TRL technologies. The UK also needs to move away from a single minded storage approach to adding value through the use of CO2 in the production of chemicals that would otherwise be sourced from virgin fossil carbon. SUSTAIN project is making synthetic fuels from captured CO2 and Flue2Chem is making FMCG components, including surfactants and precursors from the CO2.”
Dr Stuart Jenkins, Net Zero Fossil Fuel Fellow, University of Oxford, said:
“The Public Accounts Committee are wrong to have labelled CCUS as ‘unproven’, there are many commercial scale projects around the world, but they are right to question the current model for funding it. We need to make sure the CCUS industry becomes self-sustaining, without the need for major taxpayer funding. One option — asking fossil fuel suppliers to contribute to these costs via a carbon storage mandate — is a fair and responsible approach going forward.
In a recent report we published working with researchers at the University of Oxford and Carbon Balance Initiative [1] we looked at the use of Carbon Storage Mandates, which place an obligation on fossil fuel producers to capture and store a rising fraction of the CO2 they produce, to support the UK’s CCUS industry.
Carbon storage mandates, in tandem with carbon pricing and other mechanisms, could deliver subsidy-free CCUS to the UK and provide investment certainty for companies.”
[1]- https://www.carbon-balance.earth/briefs-reports/report-markets-and-mandates
Declared interests
Dr Stuart Jenkins Our report was funded by the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, and consulted regulators, fossil fuel companies, capture and storage entities, UK Government, and academics on models for CCUS sector support packages.
Professor Paul Fennell: No conflicts other than being involved in CCs research.
Dr Tim Dixon: “Tim is a Director of IEA Environmental Projects Ltd (UK), a Non-Executive Director on the Board for The International CCS Knowledge Centre (Canada). He is also proud to be an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas in Austin, and an Honorary Lecturer at the School of Geosciences at University of Edinburgh. He was an original Board Member of the UK CCS Research Centre. Previously he worked in CCS, emissions trading, clean energy technologies and related areas for AEA Technology (ETSU), for the UK Government‘s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and for the Global CCS Institute. He was the EU’s Lead Negotiator for getting CCS in the CDM in UNFCCC in 2011, and a UK negotiator for getting CCS in the London Convention 2004-7, in OSPAR 2006-7, in the EU Emission Trading Scheme 2004-8, and inputting to the EU CCS Directive 2007-8. He gives talks on climate and CCS to schools and public organisations and supported the start of Oxford Climate Society at the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the UK Energy Institute, and member of the UK Institute of Physics and the UK Environmental Law Association.”
Dr Stuart Gilfillan “I have received funding from TotalEnergies in the past, for research related to CO2 origins in the subsurface and reservoir connectivity and Equinor on CO2 dissolution in natural CO2 reservoirs. I currently receive funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and Carbfix on CO2 mineralisation.”
Prof Hannah Chalmers “I work collaboratively with industrial partners who are developing CCUS projects in the UK (e.g. as a member of the Advisory Board for the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre). I currently receive no funding from industry, but have received funding from industrial partners who are actively developing CCUS projects in the UK in the past (e.g. SSE plc).”
Professor Peter Styring: Peter is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Sheffield (an investigator on Flue2Chem and SUSTAIN) and a Co-founder and Director of CCU International.
For all other experts, no response to our request for DOIs was received.