Cost-Competitive CCS ‘Possible in UK by 2020s’

by | May 17, 2013

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Gas and coal power plants equipped with carbon capture, transport and storage technology have the potential to be cost competitive with other low-carbon power generation in the UK by the early 2020s, according to a government task force report.

The CCS Cost Reduction Task Force’s final report says power plants with CCS technology could deliver electricity at a levelized cost approaching £100 ($152) per MWh by the early 2020s, and at a cost significantly below £100 per MWh soon thereafter.

The report says seven key steps are required to be cost-competitive, such as identifying and planning the best future configuration of CO2 storage hubs and related pipeline networks, and creating a tax system in the UK that provides incentives to develop brownfield CO2 enhanced oil recovery.

The task force also recommends developing policy and financing regimes for CCS from industrial CO2; creating an industry-led vision of how phases of CCS projects can be developed and financed; focusing on how to construct contracts to make follow-on CCS projects bankable; and ensuring funding mechanisms are suitable for these types of projects.

Earlier this month, Air Products began operation of a US Department of Energy demonstration project that will capture about 1 million tons of CO2 in an enhanced oil recovery development in Texas.

Air Products’ carbon capture project in Port Arthur, Texas, recovers and purifies carbon dioxide from steam methane reformers located within Valero’s Port Arthur refinery. The CO2 is then transported in its gaseous state by Air Products via a pipeline owned by Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas for injection into the Denbury Onshore operated West Hastings Unit, an enhanced oil recovery project in Texas that then pumps the gas into disused oil wells in a bid to recover oil.

Aker Solutions this week announced it has won a contract to perform the world’s first tests for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from a cement production plant. The CO2 technology company won the award from Norcem, in cooperation with the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA).

 

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