Carbon Capture and Storage: What It Is
- Capture CO2 released from burning fuels and store
it elsewhere
- Reduce CO2 emission into atmosphere
- Steps:
1.) Capture
2.) Transport
3.) Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage: Capture
Methods of Capturing:
- Post Combustion Capture
- Pre-Combustion Capture
- Oxy-fuel Combustion
- Oxygen Extracted Air
Carbon Capture and Storage: Transportation
Methods of Transportation:
- Pipelines
- COA conveyor belt system
- Ships
Carbon Capture and Storage: Storage
Methods of Storage:
- Geological Storage (Oil fields, Unmineable coal
seams, Saline aquifers)
- Ocean Storage
- Mineral Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage: What
Phase It’s In
• 8 large-scale CCS
project currently in
operation (as of mid2011)
• 6 under construction
• 75 in progress
Hydrocarbon Reservoir Zones:
• Algeria: In Salah
• Norway: Sleipner
• Norway: Snohvit
Enhanced Oil Recovery:
• Canada/North Dakota: Great Plains Synfuel Plant
and Weyburn-Midale Project
• US:
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Shute Creek Gas Processing Facility. ExxonMobil.
Enid Fertilizer
Val Verde Natural Gas Plants
Century Plant – largest
10 countries currently working on
integrating carbon capture into
environmental conservation plans:
Canada, Italy, Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, US, UK, China,
Germany, Australia
4 projects in progress that are
trying to integrate carbon capture:
• American Clean Coal Fuels: coal and biomass
to liquids. Each gallon of their fuel used,
carbon is pulled out of air and put into
ground. Life-cycle carbon negative
• Baard Energy: same + market CO2 for EOR
• Rentech: market CO2 for EOR
• DKRW: coal to liquids for EOR
Problems
• Funding (marginal cost and benefit, no
revenue, etc.)
• Efficiency
• Even EOR won’t help us escape oil crisis
• Just reduces global greenhouse gas
emissions
Technological Feasibility
- Removing the Carbon Dioxide is not the
problem, it’s storing it that’s the main issue.
Environmentally feasible
- CCS only removes the pollutant Carbon
Dioxide
- Does not mitigate environmental damage
caused by coal harvesting.
Economic Feasibility
2020, 2030, or 2050?
Is it Economical
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Initial estimates: cost of CCS from the atmosphere at under $200 per ton
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): The atmospheric concentration,
however, is over 100 times lower, which shoots the cost up to $2,500/ton. Even adding in various
optimistic assumptions doesn’t bring the cost down below $1,000/ton.
The good news? Clean coal could become an economically viable alternative source of energy
down the road. The bad news? It’s a long road—and the short term isn’t pretty.
Capture 90% of their carbon emissions at a cost of between $100 and $150 a ton
Add between 8 and 12 cents per kilowatt hour to the cost of coal
Once the technology is mature and more efficient plants are up and running, the economics look
better: It will cost between $30 and $50 per ton of carbon, or an extra 2 to 5 cents per kilowatt
hour
Harvard figures that “maturity” means between 50 and 100 gigawatts of clean coal plants in
operation
The proposed Waxman-Markey climate bill promises $60 billion in subsidies
Can it be Used in 100 Years
• James Hansen, one of the world’s best-known global warming
researchers and a recent vocal advocate of proposed coal plants,
says clean coal technology used on a full-scale coal-fired plant could
be at least a decade away
• Enough potential in energy efficiency and renewable energy to
sustain until clean coal issue is solved
• Clean coal is NECESSARY because coal plants without carbon capture
will not be economically viable in the future
• Largest problem with carbon capture is getting coal plants to agree
to the idea since most plants are not willing to invest in the carbon
capture technology
POXC: Pressurized
Oxycombustion
• Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
– capture more than 90 percent of produced
carbon dioxide with no more than a 35 percent
increase in electricity costs
– uses pressurized oxygen and recycled carbon
dioxide gas to improve process efficiency and
eliminates nitrogen from the exhaust
IGCC: Integrated Gasification
Combined Cycle
• Pre-combustion:
– Gasified coal is used to run a turbine to produce power.
– Waste heat from the process is captured as steam and used
to create more power.
– CO2 isn't captured.
– Hydrogen Energye (BP and Rio Tinto):
• CCS plant in California that could burn coal using IGCC to
separate the CO2 and capture it
Oxyfuel
• Combustion process:
– Burning coal in a mix of carbon dioxide, water
vapor, and pure oxygen
– Plant in Germany became the first full-cycle
oxyfuel providing power for about 1,000 homes
– Waste CO2 is compressed, transported and
buried two miles below a depleted gas field.
Storage of Waste co2 Underground
• CO2 underground:
– Forces oil to the surface.
– Selling captured CO2 to oil field operators
balances some of the investment in CCS
Summary
• Economic efficiency
• Technology
– IGCC
– Oxyfuel
– Underground Storage
• Implementation
Sources
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http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/43403
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27522321/ns/us_news-environment/t/clean-coal-idea-madeit-campaign-trail/#.UIX-cml27nI
•
http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/the-coal-hard-facts
•
http://www.librarygrape.com/2011/12/clean-coal-is-not-here-today-and-wont-be-feasibletomorrow.html
•
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/07/20/clean-coal-competitive-someday-justnot-today/
•
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/james-hansen-clean-coal-tech-could-be-a-decade-away/
•
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pratt-whitney-rocketdyne-receives-1-million-award-fromus-department-of-energy-to-advance-oxy-combustion-technology-2012-10-02
•
http://www.factcheck.org/politics/clean_coal_confrontation.html