Projects to Improve Technologies

08/30/2010

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon capture and storage could reduce energy combustion-related CO₂ emissions by one third by 2050. However, to achieve this target, both technological and economic challenges must be overcome. Current carbon capture and storage (CCS) solutions are not yet fully effective. They still require significant energy input, which generates high costs. Internationally, many research projects and pilot plants are working to improve processes with a view to industrializing CCS.

Technological and Economic Challenges

According to the IPCC, a power plant with a CCS system would require 10-40% more energy than a traditional plant with equivalent output. This means that carbon capture's current energy requirements are too high and therefore too expensive.






Indeed, the cost price of CCS is so high that only large-scale production plants emitting large quantities of CO₂ can afford it.

In September 2009, there were almost 150 CCS projects up and running or in the pipeline worldwide. The aim of these projects is to overcome the technological challenges and reduce costs.

The CASTOR Project- Using Postcombustion to Optimize Recovery

Initiated in 2004, the CASTOR project brings together 30 partners (R&D organizations, oil and gas companies, energy producers, and manufacturers working in this field) from 11 European countries. The project is being coordinated by French research organization IFP.

The project's pilot plant, in a coal-fired power plant in Denmark, was the first of its kind and remains the largest in the world. It uses a postcombustion technique that involves extracting carbon dioxide from flue gases using a solvent.

CASTOR has shown that it is possible to achieve a 90% CO₂ recovery rate. The plant can capture one ton of CO₂ per hour at an estimated cost of 35 euros per ton of CO₂. Mission accomplished!

The project team also studied the storage problem by working on capacity, safety, and environmental acceptability issues. The team carried out a number of theoretical studies and has made progress in preventing CO₂ leakage through wells, rocks, and faults.

Weyburn Project- Studying CO₂ Storage in an Oil Reservoir

In 2000, an operation to recover oil through CO₂ injection was launched in the Weyburn Oil Field. In 2001, the International Energy Agency (IEA) took the opportunity to launch an international research program. The project, called "AIE Weyburn CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project"¹, aims to determine how safely CO₂ can be stored underground in an oil reservoir. Around fifteen North-American industry partners are involved (including Chevron, Shell Canada, and Schlumberger) as well as 5 Canadian and American governmental agencies.²

The CO₂ used comes from a coal gasification plant located in North Dakota (USA). It is transported to Weyburn via a specially designed 330-km-long cross-border pipeline.³1.8 million tons of CO₂ are expected to be injected over 15 years. Thus, 20 million tons of CO₂ will be stored definitively while producing 130 million more barrels of oil than with traditional methods.

The Weyburn research project is being partially funded by the European Union. Denmark, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom are collaborating with the Canadian and American research teams. The experience acquired in this field will be decisive for the future of geological storage in hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Lacq Pilot Project- Demonstrating Oxy-Fuel Combustion's

Industrial Applications

Inaugurated in January 2010, this project, led by Total on the Lacq site in Aquitaine (France), will test the entire capture, transport, and geological storage process for industrial CO₂.

The gas, emitted by one of the boilers in the Lacq plant, is captured by oxy-fuel combustion. This involves replacing the air inside the boiler with pure oxygen to obtain reduced smoke levels with very high CO₂ content.

The gas is then transported via pipeline to the geological storage site in Rousse 27 km away, where it is injected into a depleted gas field 4500 meters underground. It will be closely monitored, with sensors installed at the well-head and down-hole to measure CO₂ injection, pressure, temperature, and concentration.

Over the next 2 years, approximately 120,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be captured and trapped.

With this plant, Total hopes to achieve four main objectives:

   • To develop the oxy-fuel combustion field

   • To significantly reduce capture costs compared to existing processes and improve energy efficiency

   • To master a complete industrial capture/transport/storage chain

   • To develop a methodology and monitoring tools to demonstrate the large-scale reliability and sustainability of long-term CO₂ storage.

Other Storage-Related Projects

The France Nord project, funded by ADEME (the French Environment and Energy Management Agency) and coordinated by Total, brings together a number of French and European industry partners and research organizations. The project involves studying and carrying out small-scale testing on the capacity of deep saline aquifers in central northern France to store industrial CO₂ emissions⁴.

The Sleipner project focuses on CO₂ storage in saline aquifers. Since 1996, Norwegian oil company Statoil has injected 1 million tons of CO₂ every year into an aquifer under the seabed of the North Sea.

The In Salah gas field, operated by BP in Algeria, is also looking at storage in a saline aquifer - this time on land. Every year, 1.2 million tons of CO₂ extracted from natural gas drawn from the field is reinjected into an underground aquifer.

Finally, the European Recopol project (Reducing CO₂ emission via carbon storage in coal seams in the Silesian Coal Basin of Poland) is studying carbon storage in these seams. An international consortium, made up of research institutes, universities, and European oil and gas companies (in particular Gaz de France, Air Liquide, and Gazonor) has been set up to carry out this project)⁵.

Other projects have also been launched to study the various stages of CO₂ capture and geological storage. These include the CO2NET network, the European Inca-CO2 program, and the ENCAP project. A number of pilot plants are also due to come on-stream in the near future all over Europe and North America. The purpose of these projects is to study the stability of geological formations used for storage or to validate usable technologies.