Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
9/11/2015
While significant progress has been made toward the wide-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage technology in the four years since the release of the last Quadrennial Technology Review, many opportunities for further learning and developing exist, according to the latest QTR, released this week. “The ability to take on costly demonstration projects to advance technology, decrease developmental risks, and provide baselines for future deployment has been critical in making headway toward advanced technologies that require significant investment for demonstration, such as CCS,” according to the document.
The document makes four key recommendations for the further development of CCS. Second-generation pilot demonstration of CCS processes should be launched to address critical challenges such as pressure management, induced seismicity, and storage permanence. Future demonstration projects should focus on retrofits as opposed to new-build plants. Research and development regarding the use of CCS on natural gas plants and in industry should be encouraged. Last, international partnerships should continue and grow.
The QTR notes projects underway in the U.S. such as Southern Company’s Kemper County Energy Facility, a new-build coal plant utilizing CCS nearing completion Mississippi, and NRG Energy’s Petra Nova retrofit project under construction in Texas.
While these projects are important, it is imperative the technology reach the second-generation soon. “Second-generation CCS technology includes a suite of improvements in capture performance, plant efficiencies, and component cost, and expanded characterization of storage options. These technologies are expected to become commercially available in the mid-2020s. Analyses of coal power with CCS conducted by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) show a 20 [percent] decrease in costs of mature units compared to first-generation CCS technology,” the document says.
The document stresses the need to explore the adoption of CCS in natural gas energy production and industry. “The technology transfer to natural gas for both new plants and retrofits would be relatively straightforward, though those plants will pose challenges due to lower concentrations of CO2 (3%–4%) in the flue gas that could increase capture cost/tonne CO2, and greater oxygen concentrations which can lead to degradation of solvents. Large-scale pilot test and demonstration projects are a natural next step in the application of CCS technologies to natural gas processes,” the document says.
