BANGING THE DRUM FOR CCS - CCS EUROPE AT THE CO2NNECTING EUROPE CONFERENCE IN COPENHAGEN

Denmark reinforced its commitment to carbon capture and storage deployment at the CO2nnecting Europe conference in Copenhagen on 16 January.

With two carbon capture plants currently under construction, and a long term government commitment to support CCS with 39 billion DK, the country is seeking both to curb its own industrial emissions and become a major European hub for CO2 storage.

A downbeat appraisal of the situation in Germany, where CCS progress is delayed and frustrated by uncertain politics, was in part balanced by good reports from Sweden. Arrangements by the Energy Agency there for a reverse auction to provide support funding for CCS projects are now well underway, and the opportunity to capture and store each year as much as 35 million tonnes of CO2 derived from the use of forestry products suggests that Sweden could play a useful role in reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Georg Locher of Schwenk Zement reminded those attending that use of CCS is by far the least expensive option to achieve decarbonisation of cement production, while pointing to the significant increase in renewable energy that will be required, as well as the two trainloads of CO2-carrying rail wagons needed each day to serve a typical cement plant.

Martin Liedmit of BASF empasised the chemical industry’s need for CCS, pointing to the frightening cost of trying to achieve its decarbonisation through the use of hydrogen.

CCS doyen Julio Friedman, now of Carbon Direct, hit back at the claims by some environmentalists that CCS just permits a ‘business as usual’ approach by industry. On the contrary, he argued, to have to capture CO2 to prevent its release into the atmosphere is the opposite of business as usual. Climate change campaigners should learn to love CO2 pipelines. But he also highlighted just how difficult it will be to decarbonise some sectors. Zero carbon aviation fuel, for example, could command a CO2 price equivalent to $800-3000 per tonne, making it more expensive even than current direct air capture (DAC) systems.

Finally, I emphasized the urgent need for stronger political support for CCS across the EU, highlighting the critical role of industry in driving this forward and the immense commercial opportunities it presents for equipment providers. I challenged the audience, asking how many had spoken with an MEP about CCS deployment—only two hands were raised. Clearly, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

By Chris Davies, Director of CCS Europe