Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2005
MR BRIAN
MORRIS, DR
GEORGE MARSH,
DR JIM
PENMAN AND
MS HELEN
FLEMING
Q20 Dr Harris: I am not so worried
about the risks. I am trying to draw you on the public acceptance
issue.
Mr Morris: The answer to that
is that one has to select each storage site carefully. One does
not go putting CO2 into any old aquifer or a depleted oil or gas
field. One will have to make sure that you survey the sites before
you start doing it. You would not start to put it into aquifers
where there would be adverse effects on the environment. We are
not going to be irresponsible about this. One has to think about
the development of a regulatory regime which is going to control
how all this happens to make sure those sorts of things do not
happen. The evidence you have read out on that adverse effect
is something I have not heard of before. We will have to convince
people we will be doing it in a way which is responsible and we
will not be putting them into aquifers where that would happen.
Certainly we would not be putting CO2 into an aquifer where there
was drinkable water.
Q21 Dr Iddon: My concern is the timescale
because once this CO2 is down into the sea or into coal mines
or wherever you eventually choose to put it, it is there forever.
Who is going to stand the risk forever? Surely it will not be
the industry that puts it there. Has the Government given any
consideration as to how to assess the risk versus timescale?
Dr Marsh: With regard to your
comment about "ever", there are some physical processes
that occur over hundreds of years that lock the CO2 more and more
firmly into its storage. First of all, it dissolves in water and
next it mineralises to form solid compounds. Gradually over centuries—and
I am sure the BGS people can put numbers to it which I cannot—it
does become more and more immobilised. Clearly at the beginning
it is liquefied CO2. We do recognise that there has to be a way
of managing that risk in the longer term. The DNV risk analysis
that Jim referred to identified the boreholes themselves, the
injection wells, as the key area that might be a leakage path
out again. The sort of thinking going forward is that some sort
of organisation or fund needs to be established that would manage
the site and monitor it periodically into the future.
Q22 Dr Iddon: The caps on those wells
are cement and I understand that that is the weakness with storage,
that not enough is known about the longevity of those caps with
the CO2 content below them. Is that correct?
Dr Marsh: Cement reacts with CO2
and therefore there is a very slow degradation process. I do not
know the chemistry of the process. The point is that there is
a need for good science to look at these issues and to demonstrate
that they can be managed and handled with appropriate integrity.
Q23 Dr Iddon: You are fronting the
Government view at the moment. Is the Government going to leave
the assessment of risk to the producers of the carbon dioxide
and those who capture it and store it, or is the Government going
to have independent advice on the risks involved both with capture,
pipeline transmission and the eventual high pressure storage?
Dr Marsh: What we said in the
CAT strategy was that there was a need for a regulatory framework
for carbon capture and storage. Last year we carried out a gap
analysis to see which areas of CCS were already covered by existing
regulations and where the gaps were that might need additional
regulation. Certainly, as Brian said before, the selection of
sites and the set of criteria that you would use to choose an
appropriate site that overcomes these concerns about potential
leakage into portable water and the release of heavy metals would
be the kind of issues that would go into that regulation.
Q24 Mr Flello: As part of the risk
analysis and the work that is planned and ongoing, is there a
view of what measures could be taken if there was a cataclysmic
fault in one of the storage non-aquifers or if there was a sudden
release of the stored CO2? Is that going to be part of the plan
and the analysis?
Dr Marsh: The DNV study looked
systematically at the whole thing and asked what would happen
if the pipeline breaks, and this falls under the Pipelines Directive
and the HSE. There are established ways of dealing with pipelines
and potential catastrophic leaks. The US has over 1,000 miles
of CO2 pipeline, they pipe about 30 million tonnes a year. This
is not cutting edge technology. With regard to the leakage underground,
then we face either the slow permeation associated with the geology
or the need to go back and recap the borehole if indeed one did
fail. I think we would look to develop our research on regulatory
frameworks within the CAT strategy to use the science to set our
regulations to minimise that.
Q25 Bob Spink: I wondered how confident
the panel was that retrofit was possible given that we are a mature
industrialised nation here. Do you think that it is possible or
feasible, economically and technically, to retrofit CCS technology?
Dr Marsh: In putting together
the CAT strategy we consulted with the UK industry, particularly
the boiler makers that would retrofit advance boilers and also
organisations that would contract and build the amine scrubbing-type
of plant that is needed to retrofit CO2 capture. The industry
is confident and it has examples of where this technology is built.
The point I was making before is that most of it is built, it
has not just been joined up in this way before. Mitsubishi build
a big amine scrubbing plant to separate CO2. Mitsui Babcock, the
boilermaker, has retrofitted boilers. There are tangible examples
of this being done.
Q26 Bob Spink: You are talking about
the technological aspect. What about the pragmatic feasibility
of it? Is there going to be room? I understand that retrofitting
requires a lot of space and you will have surveyed the existing
power plants. Do you think that pragmatically it can be done even
if it is technologically possible?
Dr Marsh: On most stations, yes.
We had a try at defining what "capture ready" was in
the carbon abatement strategy and the generators that we have
spoken to after that said they are rather easy. We do have that
amount of land available on most of our power plants.
Mr Morris: A good example is that
some power stations have retrofitted a flue gas to sulphurisation
plant such as at Drax. It is possible to retrofit this sort of
technology. There are issues around the pipelines and things like
that which one has to be aware of.
Q27 Bob Spink: All this revolves
around which particular technology emerges as the winner and we
will come back to that later. Does gas fired plant offer a learning
curve opportunity for this type of CCS technology so that we could
perhaps go in and do this technology for gas plants and then,
when we have got the process successfully applied on an industrial
scale for power plant, we could move on to coal plant?
Mr Morris: I think the answer
is yes in two senses. First of all, it is a learning curve in
relation to these regulatory issues that we have been talking
about and clearly a gas fired plant would help with that. Also,
a number of the components associated with certain of the coal
fired technologies, for example burning hydrogen in gas turbines,
would be demonstrated equally on a gas fired plant as with a coal
plant. I think there are a number of examples where it does take
the overall technology forward.
Q28 Bob Spink: Given that that is
the case, how has this influenced the UK's research and development
budget and investment plans, or are we developing that at the
moment?
Mr Morris: The CAT strategy recognises
that gas is more likely to be the first technology we would use
to try and separate CO2. Gas has the benefit of only being half
the CO2 of coal, for example, so it is a much cleaner fuel anyway.
In terms of the funding these sorts of projects, I think it is
a question that in future Spending Rounds making a case for identifying
what is needed to try and stimulate their development and making
a case during the Spending Rounds for the appropriate amount of
funding.
Q29 Bob Spink: It just occurred to
me—I have an LNG interest—that there would be no difference
at all on piped LNG gas on scrubbing it afterwards, would there?
Dr Marsh: Not for scrubbing, no.
Q30 Bob Spink: What evidence is there
that the Government is encouraging new plant to be built "capture
ready"? I thought this might be a question for the regulator,
Helen, who knows what the Government is planning and doing. How
is the Government giving economic advantages to new plant build
and so on and so forth to make sure that it is "capture ready"?
Mr Morris: Coming back to the
Carbon Abatement Technology strategy, we recognised there was
a need to provide market incentives for these technologies to
take off. George has done an awful lot of the work on this so
I may have to bow to his greater expertise and knowledge on this.
We recognise that there is a need for some sort of incentive.
We also recognise that carbon trading in itself is not enough
and that there needs to be some sort of way to bridge the gap.
How we bridge that gap is difficult to say at this point. There
are a number of options for doing that. We have been looking at
some options. Whilst we recognise in principle we need to provide
some sort of incentive, how we would provide that incentive and
what sort of schemes we would be using has got to be worked through
yet. I cannot be more positive than that at this point.
Chairman: I do not want to get into costs
at this point because I want to come back to the whole issue of
costs later.
Q31 Margaret Moran: We have had some
evidence, for example from Corus, that CCS may be helpful in reducing
CO2 emissions in industries other than just power plant. What
role do you think they will play and how expensive might that
be?
Dr Marsh: We acknowledged that
in the strategy. Corus provided me with a picture so I could emphasise
it. The sort of technologies we are talking about are applicable
to most point sources with concentrated amounts of CO2 to be captured,
so it would apply to a primary steel plant or to a cement works
or maybe a fertiliser factory where hydrogen is made from methane.
Q32 Dr Turner: From a gas furnace?
Dr Marsh: From blast furnace gases,
yes. The CAT strategy is inclusive; it is not just focussed on
electricity generation.
Mr Morris: There are a number
of sources beyond power generation of CO2 from industrial plants.
There are lots of opportunities to apply these opportunities to
those sources as well.
Q33 Mr Flello: What steps are being
taken to standardise methods of estimating the storage capacity
internationally? Are steps being taken to do so?
Mr Morris: That is an interesting
question. Again I suspect our colleagues from the British Geological
Survey will be better placed to answer that than myself. I would
imagine, given that the British Geological Survey is involved
in a lot of international projects, they would be well positioned
to advise on how that is done, but I would be surprised if there
was not some degree of standardisation. I would have to bow to
them to give you a more informed answer than we could.
Dr Penman: There is also work
being done to standardise methods to monitor emissions and this
is via the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's work on
greenhouse gas inventories and also the British Geological Survey
is involved in that work. I anticipate that methods will be agreed
probably in April 2006.
Q34 Mr Flello: In terms of monitoring
and verification of storage, how easy do you expect it to be to
develop a rigorous monitoring and evaluation methodology and practical
measures?
Dr Penman: I think it is step
by step. I think there are techniques now, which the BGS has been
involved in, applying, for example, to the Norwegian project that
we hear so much about, but it is also a North American experience.
Experience suggests that low levels of leakage can be detected.
I think there is one example in which they have been detected.
In other examples no leakage has been detected. I think it is
a matter of a combination of designing and monitoring the strategy
and then going back to verify at strategic points that leakage
has or has not occurred. The framework for doing that is the thing
which I think will be agreed next April. It is not easy, please
do not think I am saying that, but I think there is a clear step-by-step
approach to it.
Q35 Mr Flello: Are the Norwegians
geared up to monitoring the amount of CO2 that is in there? Are
they not simply using it as a method of enhanced oil recovery
and actually if a bit gets wasted here and there it is not important,
it is the amount of oil that is recovered that is important to
them?
Dr Penman: I know there are experts
in this room who know 10 times more about this than I do. The
short answer is they monitor by mass flow how much CO2 goes in
and then they monitor seismically what happens to it subsequently.
Yes, they are doing it.
Q36 Mr Flello: You were talking about
over a period of time mineralization of the CO2. Are there any
developments at the moment in terms of movement of the mineralization
process and how long it takes in certain circumstances, is that
in the strategy?
Dr Penman: There is a broad geological
understanding of the processes that would go on. I do not know
of any work beyond that.
Q37 Chairman: We heard yesterday
from the Chief Scientific Adviser that there was work going on
in terms of actually creating dolomite, it was the idea of flooding
the deserts in Australia and suddenly we would be able to resolve
these problems. Are the people that are advising him talking nonsense?
Dr Penman: No, of course they
are not talking nonsense.
Q38 Chairman: You are looking at
this, are you? I get the impression that it is all a bit tentative.
Dr Penman: I think this is a matter
of geological science. In the session after this one there will
be people much better able to answer this question than we can.
I think it is a matter of geochemical science, the broad science
background.
Q39 Chairman: So they should be advising
the Government?
Mr Morris: The mineralization
of carbon dioxide is an interesting area. The IEA greenhouse gas
implementing agreement did a study on mineralization recently
and the IPCC report on carbon capture and storage also commented
on it. I think the bottom line is the amount of energy it needs
at the moment is far greater than the energy you are producing,
so there is a pretty serious down side to it. The conclusions
that the IEA greenhouse study came to was that it is something
to keep an eye on, but it is quite a long way out at the moment.
I think more work is going on in America on this, certainly I
am not aware of anything going on here, but the Americans are
quite keen on this and they are looking at it.
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