Memorandum submitted by the UK Carbon
Capture and Storage Consortium
Submitted by UKCCSC Management Committee:
| Jon Gibbins, Imperial College London
Stuart Haszeldine, University of Edinburgh
Sam Holloway, Jonathan Pearce, British Geological Survey
John Oakey, Cranfield University
Simon Shackley, University of Manchester
Carol Turley, Plymouth Marine Laboratory
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BACKGROUND
The UK Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium, with members
from 15 UK universities and research institutions, is part of
the Research Councils' "Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy
(TSEC) programme". The mission of the consortium is "to
promote an understanding of how options for decoupling fossil
fuel use from carbon emissions through the use of carbon capture
and storage could be used to assist the UK in achieving an energy
system which is environmentally sustainable, socially acceptable
and meets energy needs securely and affordably".
To place the proposal results within a UK "whole systems"
perspective, the Consortium mission will be carried out through
close collaboration with UKERC and the National Energy Network.
The project runs for three years from June 2005, to provide research
inputs to the rapidly moving UK energy debate.
Further details of the Consortium and background information
on CCS can be found on the web site: http://www.ukccsc.co.uk.
COMMENTS
CCS in the UK electricity generation sector
It appears possible that carbon capture and storage will
have a significant role to play in the UK generation sector, and
this potential should be recognised in the Committee's deliberations.
DTI UEP electricity generation mix figures for 2000-20 and
some illustrative alternative scenarios for 2020 are shown in
Table 1 overleaf.
The UK power generation sector contains opportunities for
the commercial deployment of a wide range of CCS technologies.
However, the "commercially viability" of some or all
of these measures for deployment in 2020 depends entirely on final
UK carbon emission targets and the ability of alternative options
to deliver at a lower price. Additional costs for the "decarbonised
electricity" options using CCS are probably in the range
of 1-3 p/kWh. The scenarios shown in Table 1 include an option
in which significant coal generation capability is retained. This
would probably involve some existing power plants being upgraded
from sub-critical to supercritical steam conditions and having
post-combustion CO2 "scrubbers" added. It
is also likely, however, that some new Integrated Gas Combined
Cycle (IGCC) plants with CO2 shift to hydrogen would
also be built—several such schemes are already being planned.
In the longer term, further existing coal power plants may be
upgraded to oxyfuel operation or be repowered with gasifiers.
Natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plant may also have CO2
capture fitted. This could be pre-combustion capture with intermediate
production of hydrogen, as at the proposed Peterhead/Miller scheme,
or use post-combustion capture technology. Natural gas plants
are likely to offer relatively low-cost CO2 capture
so long as gas prices are also low, particularly for new NGCC
plant that is designed for capture from the outset. The last column
in Table 1 shows this option—the amount of NGCC plant capacity
with capture corresponds approximately to new plant that would
need to be built between now and 2020 to meet demand in a high-gas
scenario. In any case it is important that all new UK power plant
is built to be "capture ready", even if capture equipment
is not installed when it is built. Depending on future natural
gas supply conditions, some existing NGCC plant may be modified
to operate on gas from new coal gasifiers—these would also
be suitable for CO2 capture either when built or subsequently.
The UK has significant CO2 storage opportunities
offshore, with probably the greatest absolute capacity of any
European country after Norway and the best combination of CO2
sources relatively close to potential CO2 sinks. Storage
capacity for UK oil fields as a result of enhanced oil recovery
has been estimated at approximately 700 Mt CO2. Storage
capacity in saline aquifers may be significantly larger (possibly
orders of magnitude larger) than this but estimates are more difficult
due to the uncertainties surrounding poorly characterised aquifers.
To develop this potential, however, needs a value to be given
to CO2 by emissions trading, or by UK government fiscal
policy—as well as public and legal acceptance. Deployment
of such a strategy is viewed as best value bridging technology
towards much more drastic CO2 reductions between about
2020 and 2050.
The abundance of CCS options in the UK also brings challenges.
A range of stakeholders need to participate in developing effective
strategies and there is a risk of excessive diversification and
dissipation of effort. As a result, new integrated research projects
have been proposed to study the issues involved in getting the
best value for the UK out of CCS applications and to make sure
that maximum benefits are achieved through international collaboration
on technology development. The DTI CAT (Carbon Abatement Strategy)
and the Research Councils' TSEC (Towards a Sustainable Energy
Economy) initiative are both planned to address CCS issues in
depth, and to place them in an integrated UK energy system context
and to consider the social, environmental, economic, technological
and other aspects. Environmental and health and safety issues
surrounding CCS on a range of temporal and spatial scales require
a focused and coordinated research activity. In the longer term,
it is hoped that a UK Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Authority
will be established by the UK Government to take overall responsibility
for the regulation of this new industry, and eventually to provide
long term stewardship for the CO2 stored underground.
Global applications for carbon capture and storage technologies
The UK energy economy has the potential to develop and demonstrate
CCS technologies that could find applications in many other countries.
The UK has the opportunity to make a leading contribution in this
field, because of:
— its industrial expertise in a number of key areas;
— the need for new UK power plant capacity over
the next two decades;
— a window of opportunity in the next decade for
enhanced oil recovery in the North Sea;
— national CO2 emission targets that
could justify the deep reductions that CCS technologies can give;
and
— a fortuitous combination of geological endowment,
with subsurface engineering.
CCS is likely also to see early use in other countries over
the next two decades and, even where immediate deployment is not
justified, it is important to ensure that new power plants are
designed and built to be "capture ready". This can generally
be done at minimal cost, for conventional pulverised coal and
NGCC plants as well as new IGCC stations. It would then be possible
to add CO2 capture rapidly and at relatively low cost
whenever political and economic conditions develop to justify
it. The capability to achieve rapid and cost-effective deployment
of CCS technology, as part of a portfolio of demand and supply
side options to manage carbon emissions, is also likely to encourage
a positive approach to atmospheric CO2 concentration
stabilisation.
21 September 2005
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