GHGT-17: Opening and Welcome

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By Jasmin Kemper

21 October 2024

Kelly Thambimuthu giving the opening address at the GHGT-17 Conference in Calgary Canada

Attendees of the GHGT-17 were welcomed by Justin Riemer (Chief Executive Officer of Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA)) and Colleen Waskewitch Runner (Guest Services Manager of the Grey Eagle Resort Calgary) on Monday morning. Colleen acknowledged the land of the First Nations and provided a conference blessing. Justin then provided a brief introduction about Alberta’s leadership in CCUS, with the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) being the largest CO2 pipeline in the world. Large investments are currently being made by industrial companies to overcome the challenge of making CCUS economically viable. In addition, 11 different front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies are underway, with some of them nearing completion. However, more policy and regulatory certainty will be needed to get more CCUS projects off the ground. Justin also underlined the importance of extracting value by providing innovation rather than just extracting resources. Research needs to be harnessed to provide benefits for both the communities involved and the planet, the motto here being to “Think big.”.

Next, Kelly Thambimuthu (Chair of the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG)) presented the long history and background of IEAGHG and CCUS in Canada, starting with IEAGHG’s formation in 1992, over the Weyburn-Midale project in 1996, to more recent IEAGHG reports and activities (e.g. the Summer School) highlighting the lessons learned from the Boundary Dam and Quest projects. Since the last GHGT conference, the IPCC released its Synthesis Report of the 6th Assessment Report (AR6 SYR), establishing CCS as an option for emissions reductions from fossil fuels, with CO2 injection and storage being considered secure and available in sufficient capacity. Similarly, the IEA highlights the importance of scaling and deploying carbon management technologies, next to other options like reducing deforestation, cutting non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and deploying renewable energy (RE).It is also important to keep in mind that energy technologies can have different efficiencies, so they need to be deployed smartly to align with the conference theme “catalyst to net zero”.

Tim Dixon (Director and General Manager of IEAGHG) echoed that we need CCS to achieve our climate goals. This GHGT is the largest to date, with over 1,500 attendees and 1,100 abstracts received. The CO2 footprint of the conference will be calculated and offset by purchasing offsets from the Alberta Emissions Offset Registry.  

Mary Burce Warlick (Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA)) highlighted that last year marked a record in global temperature history, with the 1.5C threshold being temporarily reached. Thus, the net zero pathway has narrowed but the door remains open. Fossil fuel demand is expected to peak by the end of this decade and RE is moving faster than governments can set targets. The strategic role of CCUS in clean energy transitions is to enable negative emissions, low-carbon hydrogen and other services/products. Existing skillsets of the fossil fuel industry workforce can be utilised in this transition but it is also important to increase indigenous participation and leadership in the carbon management industry. In order to get on track, we need to continue the recent momentum, move projects into operation and reduce project lead times.    

Myles Allen (Professor of Geosystem Science, University of Oxford) established that we will emit more CO2 than we can afford according to the carbon budget. CCUS is the only way we know to get permanently rid of CO2. We are not going to phase out fossil fuels quickly enough to meet out climate goals. We will also need to address the passive response of the carbon cycle to CO2 reductions/removals, i.e. the land and the oceans. Addressing the question what it takes to stop global warming, Myles highlighted that we need to burn less fossil fuels and/or replace them with RE, store more carbon (e.g. also by reducing deforestation). Nature-based solutions can help but probably won’t stem the main contribution, which would fall onto geological CO2 storage. However, currently only 0.1% of CO2 is restored to the geosphere and this share needs to grow significantly, to 30% or 1 trillion tCO2 by 2100. This will be a challenge, as CCS is currently receiving only about 1% of the transition investment. Talking about how to pay for CO2 disposal, Myles mentioned the current dependence on direct subsidies, which are economically inefficient and politically vulnerable. Carbon pricing under emissions trading schemes (ETSs) is ineffective for technologies with high unit costs and/or long development times. Carbon takeback obligations (CTBOs) will likely be a better approach.

Jarad Daniels (Chief Executive Officer of the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI)) underlined that collaboration is key to global CCUS deployment. 50 facilities are currently in operation, 44 are in construction and 628 are in the pipeline. However, this is still some way off the targets to achieve geological net zero. Project derisking remains key to CCS investment and improved financing can be offset by inflation, interest rates, permitting and policy uncertainties. Potential tailwinds for CCS deployment include baseload power requirements, high-quality carbon credits and multilateral development banks. CCS legislation moved forward in several jurisdictions, including e.g. Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Western Australia. China is now doing CCUS at MTPA scale and offers tremendous opportunities.  

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