Carbon Capture Sequestration is Needed Soon

The world’s population continues to grow and along with it so grows our dependence on electricity. The world is not adopting alternative and renewable fuel sources such as solar, wind, wave, etc quickly enough, so plans are being drawn up to build new coal-fired power plants around the world.

E.on, the German energy giant based in Düsseldorf, Germany, wants to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, England. Protesters and scientists want to stop the plan from going forward unless it is linked to a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility which would store its emissions underground. The proposed plant has no CCS plans for Kingsnorth and so its CO2 emissions would vent into the atmosphere. Protesters will not be able to stop the proposed construction of the plant and an E.on company spokesman said they have obtained injunctions to give police more powers to arrest protesters.

With the threat of violence between environmentalists and power plant owners heading towards the boiling point, CCS research needs to be finalized soon.

E.on currently has three new pilot projects to develop CO2 capture technology in cooperation with other companies based in Canada, U.S. and Japan. The three test plants will all be built in Germany. The three projects join four existing projects that E.on is pursuing together with Alstom, Hitachi Power Europe, Siemens and TNO.

The purpose behind cooperating with so many different companies is to test the capture mechanisms with several plant construction methods.

Germany appears to be taking their role in this potentially lucrative field very seriously. Just how serious is England in its quest to be one of the world’s leaders in carbon capture technology? Despite its promise of ‘urgent detailed implementation plan’s for carbon capture nearly five years ago, it is still only intending to help fund one small-scale project which should be operational by 2014. Companies taking part in the competition to build this demonstration plant are not even sure how much money they will receive.

This month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only just began working on the regulatory framework for this potential weapon against climate change. Estimates suggest there is enough geologic space in the U.S. to store more than 3,000 gigatons of CO2, enough to store emissions from nearly 1,000 coal-fired power plants for a millennium. CCS, however, is in its infancy and not practiced on a broad scale in the U.S. but actual production needs to take place in order to keep up with Germany.

The European Union is testing several projects and on Wednesday gave Norway additional funds for an experimental CCS project at a gas-fired power plant. The Alberta government in Canada said last week it will spend $2 billion on major CCS projects.

Other countries pursuing CCS include Australia and Japan. By 2012, the global CCS market could top $236 billion.

With coal providing 25% of global primary energy needs and generating 40% of the world’s electricity, as well as being one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, there is doubt that coal will be replaced by alternative energy sources any time soon. This is manly due to the cheaper cost of burning coal versus oil or natural gas.

Research into CCS is urgently needed in order to keep up with the inevitable rising trend in building new coal-fired power plants. And it appears we are on the right track, but it is going to take at least another five to ten years before we begin seeing clearer skies around these mammoth polluters. Whether we will see CCS come to fruition in time to be our saving grace from choking out the planet remains to be seen. But with Germany taking the lead in the race we will know the answer sooner than we would from these other countries.

Further reading:
World Resources Institute
Science Daily