News from Korea and Petra Nova at the 7th Korea CCUS International Conference.

The 7th Korea CCUS conference was held on Jeju island on 8-10th February. This annual conference brings together all the CCUS R&D in Korea. This is a respectably-sized conference, a total number of around 300 attended over the three days to hear presentations (in English) in three parallel streams: capture; storage; and CO₂ conversion; plus some policy work, and further work was presented in posters.

The conference was organised by Korea Carbon Capture and Sequestration R&D Centre (KCRC). We were very pleased to attend, as Korean is a member country of IEAGHG. As well as showcasing Korean R&D, KCRC brought international updates in with plenary speakers from USA, Japan, China, and Italy. IEAGHG gave the introductory scene-setting on CCS and climate change from the Paris Agreement looking forwards.

The storage work presented at the conference included much work from the controlled release site EIT (Environmental Impact evaluation Test facility), on geochemical and tracer monitoring techniques for impacts in ground water and soil gas. The amount of work being generated from this site is impressive, reminding me of the ZERT facility in the USA.

The Korean work on CO₂ capture includes on solvents for post-combustion capture and on membranes for pre- and post-combustion capture.

The CO₂ conversion work covered various techniques of CO₂ utlisation and conversion, including a focus on microalgae-based capture and product developments.

The plenary talk by Andrew Hlasko of US DOE on NRG's Petra Nova project was particularly interesting, as this CCS project commenced full operation last month. It is capturing at the rate of 1.4mt CO₂ pa, and sending the CO₂ for EOR in West Ranch oil field Texas (in which NRG has a joint venture). This MHI capture plant with KS-1 solvent is scaled-up ten times the previous existing MHI plants around the world. To ensure the storage of CO₂ they are using strict MMV protocol at the oil field. Also of relevance to this audience was that the large CO₂ regenerator vessel was made in Korea and shipped in one piece to Texas. Petra Nova is the largest coal power station in the USA, at 3800MWe. Benefit was made from the learnings with the pilot CCS project with MHI capture technology at Southern Company's Plant Barry. The DOE and NRG are proud that the Petra Nova project completed on schedule and within budget. I think this may have been the first conference to hear this much about the Petra Nova CCS project. The press release on becoming operational can be seen at http://investors.nrg.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=121544&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2236424

So all in all, with a wealth of Korean R&D on CCUS, an interesting two days in a rather stormy location on the edge of the Yellow Sea. The presentations will be available at http://www.koreaccs.or.kr/ .