Technology Collaboration Programme by IEA logo

IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme

Global Warming started in 1830’s

 New research led by Australian scientists, and recently published in the journal Nature suggests human impacts had begun to change the climate as back as the 1830's, earlier than previously expected. Their conclusions were based on natural records of climate variation in the world's oceans and continents, including those found in corals, ice ...

Continue reading
  2217 Hits

US DOE Carbon Storage Meeting and IEAGHG Plenary Panels

 The US DOE's annual Carbon Storage R&D Project Review Meeting was held in Pittsburgh this week. These meetings present all the current DOE funded research and development projects in CO2 storage, and are impressive gatherings of US research activity. This year it was combined with the DOE's oil and natural gas technologies research review...

Continue reading
  2087 Hits

Carbon Capture and Storage Faraday Discussion

 The Faraday Discussion on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) took place 18-20th July in Sheffield, UK. This unique meeting format (more on this in a moment) was organised by the Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and supported by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE). The scientific committee consisted of Paul Fen...

Continue reading
  2541 Hits

If we didn’t know already, 2015 was the hottest year on record.

 The 2015 State of the Climate report has recently been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The report confirmed that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the warmest year since at least the mid-to-late 19th century. The record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and one of the strongest El Niñ...

Continue reading
  1896 Hits

Millionth tonne captured at Boundary Dam during IEAGHG International Summer School

Congratulations to SaskPower for capturing their millionth tonne of CO2 yesterday, during the IEAGHG International CCS Summer School visit. Fifty students from over 17 countries visited SaskPower's Boundary Dam project yesterday, coinciding with the capture of their millionth tonne. The students had been hearing from SaskPower about many aspects of...

Continue reading
  2034 Hits

A triumph for Science and Policy

Whilst we have been familiar with articles telling us that global surface temperatures are increasing month on month, water resources are increasingly stressed and that glaciers and ice sheets around the world are melting quickly at least there is some good news out there. A new study published in the Journal Science tells us that the Antarctic ozo...

Continue reading
  2046 Hits

International Workshop on Offshore Geological CO2 Storage report

 The report is now published of the workshop on Offshore Geological CO2 Storage which was held on 19-21 April, 2016 at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA. The workshop was organized by the Gulf Coast Carbon Center at BEG, IEAGHG, and the South African National Energy Development Institute, and w...

Continue reading
  2114 Hits

That’s it then we are stuck with 400ppm

 According to a new study recently reported in the journal Nature, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will stay permanently above 400 parts per million (ppm) this year due to El Nino. The follow on bad news is that the researchers do not expect that it will likely drop below 400ppm "within our lifetimes," Commenting on the research presented in...

Continue reading
  1854 Hits

Monitoring Network and Modelling Network meeting in Edinburgh - using the modelling-monitoring loop to demonstrate storage performance more effectively

The 11th meeting of the IEAGHG's Monitoring Network and the 6th meeting of the Modelling Network took place in Edinburgh last week, as a combined meeting, hosted by BGS and SCCS. These meetings bring together leading experts from research and industry to discuss the latest work and developments, with around 60 participants from 11 countries at this...

Continue reading
  1953 Hits

Occidental MRV presented at the 2016 CCUS Conference, USA

 This year this annual CCUS Conference moved from its recent past location in Pittsburgh to Tysons Corner, Virginia (near Washington DC). Over three days, some 200 attendees listened to 65 presentations given in four parallel streams. There was great interest in the two presentations were made on the Occidental MRV plan which had been approved...

Continue reading
  1988 Hits

Risk Management Network and Environment Research Network Combined Meeting Concludes

 The summary report of the Risk Management Network and Environmental Research Network Combined meeting held in September 2015 has now been published. This meeting was held at the UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC), in Southampton and was attended by 62 delegates from 11 countries. The three day meeting included themes on risk assessment m...

Continue reading
  2184 Hits

Hitting new highs and lows and raised concerns

 The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides up to date data on the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. The NOAA data set shows a steadily increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. In June 2016 NOAA reported that in May 2016 they recorded the biggest year-over-year jump in atmospheric ...

Continue reading
  1893 Hits

Public Sharing of Information on Progressing Development of the UK’s Strategic Carbon Dioxide Storage Resource

 There was an excellent webinar today hosted by the Global CCS Institute on work from the UK's Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) to develop UK storage resource. The report was produced by a consortium led by Aberdeen-based consultancy Pale Blue Dot Energy working with Axis Well Technology and Costain. It follows a 12 month project commission...

Continue reading
  2088 Hits

Review of project permits under the London Protocol – An assessment of the proposed P18-4 CO2 storage site

 The London Convention and Protocol promotes the protection of the marine environment by prohibiting the dumping of wastes and other matter into the sea. Under the Protocol all dumping is prohibited, with the exception of a limited number of selected substances. In 2007, an amendment entered into force which permitted CO2 streams for geologica...

Continue reading
  2093 Hits

Operational flexibility of CO2 transport and storage

 One of the advantages of CCS as a means of CO2 abatement is that several industrial processes, as well as fossil fuel power generation, can be captured and connected to a pipeline network. Multiple sources of CO2 can then be transported to suitable geological reservoirs and injected to ensure secure storage. Many industrial operations, and po...

Continue reading
  2017 Hits

New report - Review of GHG Accounting Rules for CCS

IEAGHG has jsut published a new techncial review - 2016-TR3, Review of GHG Accounting Rules for CCS. The review was completed by Carbon Counts. A range of greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring and accounting protocols and guidelines currently exist for carbon capture and storage (CCS) activities, and various activities continue in this area. This report ...

Continue reading
  1968 Hits

Aerosols who needs them and back to square 1 for the climate modellers?

 I have read a fascinating article in Nature about the ability of trees to seed clouds. All the research I have seen to date suggests that if we act to reduce air pollution by scrubbing sulphur dioxide from power plants then we reduce the albedo effect of clouds and the earth heats up. This has in part been blamed for increasing temperatures i...

Continue reading
  2063 Hits

Can CO2 capture and storage unlock ‘unburnable carbon’?

 'Unburnable carbon' refers to fossil fuel reserves that cannot be used and the resulting greenhouse gases emitted if the world has a limited 'carbon budget'. This situation leads to the question: what role does technology have in addressing these concepts and concerns related to them? The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernm...

Continue reading
  2418 Hits

Can Technology Unlock Unburnable Carbon?

 The launch event of this report by the Sustainable Gas Institute (SGI) was held at Imperial College London on the 17th of May. The lead author, Sara Budinis, gave a presentation summarising the work, followed by a panel discussion with experts (Luke Warren (CCSA), Professor Paul Ekins (UCL), Charlotte Wolff-Bye (Statoil)) and the audience. Th...

Continue reading
  2283 Hits

IEAGHG 49th ExCo

 The 49th bi-annual IEAGHG ExCo meeting has come to a close in the beautiful Norweigen city of Bergen. Hosted by Gassnova, the meeting began on the 10th May with a visit to the Technology Centre Mongstad. This centre is the world's largest facility for testing and improving CO2 capture. Knowledge gained will prepare the ground for CO2 capture ...

Continue reading
  2164 Hits