Land down underAussies inaugurate carbon capture institute

Australia is known for its can-do approach to problem solving. Other societies and cultures may be prone to navel gazing, but the Aussies — living in a country which is remote, isolated, vast, sparsely populated, and with harsh climate — have viewed such self indulgence as a luxury they could not afford. Here is an example: The quest for clean coal. Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, has announced the founding of the $100 million Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI). The Canberra-based GCCSI has been formed to build up a global register of existing CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects as well as bring together an international research and development knowledge base. “This institute recognizes the cold hard reality that coal will be the major source of power generation for many years to come — with the 2008 IEA World Energy Outlook forecasting that the share of electricity generation sourced from coal will rise from 41 percent now to 44 percent by 2030. This is a reality we have to deal with,” said Rudd.

Carbon capture and storage involves capturing carbon dioxide from large sources such as fossil fuel power plants and refineries and permanently storing it away from the atmosphere, either in deep geological formations, in deep ocean masses, or in the form of mineral carbonates. Each of these possibilities is complicated by engineering and environmental challenges.

Australia is the world’s fourth largest producer of hard coal, and the prime minister said today that Australia has a national and shared global responsibility to establish the workability of carbon capture and storage technology at a commercial scale. “If we succeed together,” said Rudd, “Australia and the world will benefit greatly in dealing with the challenge of climate change. If we fail through this and other shared enterprises around the world and establish that CCS cannot deliver the outcomes we need, then the challenge of global climate change action will be even greater than we currently contemplate. The stakes are very high in the gathering to which you have come here in Australia today.”

The fledgling institute has received strong international support with 16 national governments and more than 40 major companies in the coal, oil and gas, electricity, technology, finance and research sectors signing on as foundation members and collaborating participants. In addition to Australia, national government members include: Abu Dhabi, Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New guinea, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The government of China is a collaborating participant.

Five of Australia’s state governments are foundation members, as are energy, manufacturing and mining corporations such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Dow, General Electric, Hitachi, Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, RWE Power AG, StatoilHydro, and Xstrata Coal, among others.

Influential organizations such as the Australian Coal Association, the World Coal Institute, the Japanese Coal Energy Center, the Clinton Foundation, and the Climate Group are members, as are the Asian Development Bank, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the International Energy Agency. The World Bank is a collaborating participant.

More members are expected to join by July 1, 2009 when the institute will become a separate legal entity.

We mentioned that German energy group, RWE Power, is among the founding companies and will be involved in setting up the GCCSI. RWE is currently working on the Mountaineer hard-coal-fired power plant in West Virginia and has plans to construct a coal-fired power plant with CO₂ capture, transport, and storage technology in Hürth, near Cologne. The 450MW plant is expected to begin operation by early 2015, subject to regulatory approval.

Dr. Johannes Lambertz, RWE’s chief executive, said: “We are delighted to be joining this internationally focused institution as a founding member. This underlines our aim to be one of the key players in driving forward CO₂ capture and storage technologies. Climate protection and reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are global challenges. CCS has the potential to take on a decisive role. Our primary goal is and remains to enable commercial use of CO₂ capture and storage by 2020.”

The group’s role in the GCCSI will further strengthen its ties with Australia, after having recently been issued a license to use its fluidized bed drying process in the country. This system reduces the water content of the raw lignite from 60 to 12 per cent to enhance energy extraction from raw material.

According to RWE, future lignite-fired power plants will be able to use the process to improve efficiency by up to 48 percent. A €50 million prototype system is currently in operation at the Niederaussem power plant in Germany.

HS Daily Wire will publish Australian Technology and Innovation Special Report in June 2009; for more information contact Cindy Whitman at cwhitman@hsdailywire.com