Large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects have passed an important milestone, says an institute for the technology in a recent report.
The CCS project at the Boundary Dam power station in Saskatchewan, having commenced operation in October, is considered the world’s first full scale example of its type, and is in effect, the report’s exhibit A. Two additional large-scale CCS projects in the power sector – at the Kemper County Energy Facility in Mississippi and the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project in Texas – are planned to come into operation in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Construction is also underway on the world’s first large-scale CCS project in the iron and steel sector, the Abu Dhabi CCS Project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Those four projects are among the 22 large-scale CCS projects in operation or construction around the world, double the number at the beginning of the decade.
This means that it is time to move discussion onto how CCS can best be deployed as part of a least-cost approach to climate change mitigation, the Melbourne, Australia-based Global CCS Institute says. “We can now move on from arguments about its ‘experimental’ nature or that it has not yet been applied at scale to fossil fuel power plants. ... There is an urgent need for policies and funded programs which encourage the exploration and appraisal of significant carbon dioxide (CO2) storage capacity, so that broader deployment is not delayed by uncertainty over available storage. CCS is the only technology that can achieve large reductions in CO2 emissions from industries such as iron and steel and cement. Urgent attention must be given to the development of policies that incentivise the widespread deployment of CCS in such industries.”
{mosimage) The report counts a further 14 large-scale CCS projects in advanced planning, including nine in the power sector, many of which are anticipated to be in a position to make a final investment decision during 2015.
SaskPower explains that “the world’s first post-combustion coal-fired CCS project” will transform the aging Unit #3 at Boundary Dam Power Station near Estevan, Saskatchewan into a reliable, long-term producer of 110 megawatts of base-load electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The captured CO2 will be transported by pipeline to nearby oil fields in southern Saskatchewan where it will be used for enhanced oil recovery. CO2 not used for enhanced oil recovery will be stored in the Aquistore Project.
In addition to CO2, there will be opportunities for the sale of other byproducts from the Project. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) will be captured, converted to sulphuric acid and sold for industrial use. Fly ash, a by-product of coal combustion, will also be sold for use in ready-mix concrete, pre-cast structures and concrete products.
In an article in Stikeman’s Canadian Energy Law, authors P. Jason Kroft and Tamir Birk suggest “The unveiling of the Boundary Dam project raises novel legal issues that will have to be clarified as CCS gains traction. Who will maintain the long-term responsibility for overseeing CO2 deposit sites – the length of monitoring (up to hundreds of years before CO2 sufficiently bonds with rock) raises the issue of which entity will be liable for a CCS project? What if CO2 migrates into neighbouring lands over time? Who will be liable if injected gasses contaminate groundwater or cause other environmental concerns? These are just some of the legal implications that will need to be addressed before CCS can become accepted worldwide.”