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Technology Collaboration Programme by IEA

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Technical Review

The Landscape of Carbon Dioxide Capture, Storage and Management (CCSM) Education in the UK

  • 1 August 2009
  • Industry Insights
  • Public Perception

This report was commissioned by the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG) to assist the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) task force in the assessment of international graduate degrees at MSc and PhD level on Carbon Dioxide Capture, Storage, and Carbon Management (hereinafter CCSM) from universities. The scope of this report is to identify academic perspectives and programs in the areas of CCSM currently available in the United Kingdom (UK). The information assembled in this report was sought from the internet, email contacts and visiting key universities. This report addresses the major findings and discusses the current landscape of CCSM education in the UKThis report has concentrated on courses provided in the UK. In addition, mention should be made that from a base in the UK the IEA GHG organises an annual International CCS Summer School. This is hosted at different locations worldwide each time; Germany, Canada and Australia in the first three years. This course offers an intensive week in all aspects of CCS, from capture to storage, and non-technical topics such as economics, policy, regulation, safety and public communication.   

Technical Report

4th Meeting of the Risk Assessment Network

  • 1 July 2009
  • Event Proceedings
  • Storage

The fourth IEA GHG Risk Assessment Network Meeting was held on the 16th—17th April 2009 in Melbourne, Australia, and hosted by CO₂CRC. Cliff Kavonic of Victorian Department of Primary Industries gave the official welcome. The Victorian Government was that day publishing a report by Geoscience Victoria on the storage potential in the Gippsland basin in south Victoria. The fifty six attendees enjoyed the discussions based around the six sessions. These were on reports from other initiatives, leakage impacts, combining monitoring with modelling and risk assessment, insurance and risk, risk communication, and updates from real projects.

Technical Report

Long Term Integrity of CO₂ Storage – Well Abandonment

  • 1 July 2009
  • Storage

This report focuses on potential hazards to geological storage of CO₂ related to previously abandoned deep oil and gas wells. As many prospective CO₂ storage projects will be situated in mature sedimentary basins, these operations need to accommodate previously drilled and abandoned wells. The current study aims to provide a high order evaluation of abandoned wells and their suitability to CO₂ storage operations. To this purpose an overview of the current state of knowledge on potential degradation mechanisms of typical well materials (i.e. cement and steel) is presented. Several case studies are described, illustrating some typical aspects associated with abandoned wells in the context of geological storage of CO₂. Furthermore, a geographical overview of numerous well abandonment regulations is provided, reflecting significant differences in regulatory demands around the world. Moreover, both abandonment regulations and practices historically gradually developed to the present high standards. As a consequence, especially older wells are considered to be a potential threat to long term storage integrity. Various risk assessment methodologies are described that are tailored to well integrity evaluation for geological CO₂ storage. Finally, an overview of potential corrective measures and monitoring strategies is presented.

Technical Report

5th Meeting of the Wellbore Integrity Network

  • 1 June 2009
  • Event Proceedings
  • Storage

The IEA GHG Wellbore Integrity Network has been running for 5 years now, and the meeting in 2009 was held in Calgary, Canada. The attendance for the meeting covered the usual mix of industry, academia, research and regulators, but there was a noted increase in attendance from industrial companies. This was demonstrative of the local area that the meeting was held in, with a large number of oil companies working in the surrounding province. This increased industry representation moved the discussion sessions to areas previously not addressed, or only addressed in brief outline, and this is indicative of the progress of the meeting and its continued worth. A possibility for the future of the network will be an alteration in its role, from pure research into wellbore integrity, materials and abandonment procedures, to one of education of industrial operators, and the broaching of the gap between experience gained from the oil and gas industry, and the needs and demands of regulations relating to CO<sub>2</sub> Capture and Storage (CCS) operations.

Technical Report

Safety in Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport and Storage

  • 1 June 2009
  • Capture
  • Storage

Within the next few years it is expected that an increasing number of commercial-scale demonstrations of CO<sub>2</sub> capture and storage technology will be built and brought into operation. Many aspects of the design of such facilities including issues relating to engineering design, environmental impacts, standards and permitting have been the subject of studies undertaken for the IEA GHG. So far no study has been dedicated specifically to the issue of safety in the above ground elements of CCS systems although such safety issues have been addressed to some extent in earlier studies. This study was designed specifically to examine the safety issues which are likely to arise when preparing safety cases and planning emergency procedures for CO<sub>2 </sub>capture and storage (CCS) projects

Technical Review

Otway Basin Pilot Project - Annual Expert Review of Monitoring and Verification Programme

  • 1 June 2009
  • Industry Insights
  • Storage

IEA GHG has produced a revised set of criteria for assessment of plants, particularly power plants with CO₂ capture, making use of information from EPRI and others. The revised criteria should be used by IEA GHG for its future studies. Other organisations are encouraged to use the criteria to provide consistency of results. Preliminary criteria have been specified for alternative locations and these should be finalised with local organisations at the time when IEA GHG undertakes its first study for each alternative location. Other alternative locations could be considered in future, at the request of IEA GHG's members. As a follow on to this report IEA GHG will assess the feasibility of providing standard assessment criteria for CO₂ transport and storage and it will develop methodologies for comparing the relative merits of CCS and alternative low-CO₂ technologies.

Technical Review

Partial Capture of CO₂

  • 1 May 2009
  • Capture

This report is a brief review of the technology and costs of partial capture of CO₂. The report does not attempt to prescribe policies for mandating CO₂ capture and whether partial capture should be part of a policy for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. IEA GHG provides technical information which can be used by policy makers but it does not intend to be policy prescriptive

Technical Review

Criteria for Technical and Economic Assessment with Low CO₂ Emissions

  • 1 May 2009
  • Capture
  • Costs of CCUS

The IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG) undertakes studies to assess technologies for abatement of greenhouse gas emissions. IEA GHG has concentrated on CO₂ Capture and Storage (CCS) applied to power generation but it has also assessed CCS in other industries and will compare the relative merits of CCS and alternative greenhouse gas abatement options. Soon after IEA GHG started operation in 1991 it produced a set of standard technical and economic criteria for assessment of power plants with capture to ensure that its studies are undertaken on a consistent basis, as far as possible. These criteria have continued to be used since then, with some minor modifications.

Technical Report

CO₂ Geological Storage Modelling Workshop

  • 1 April 2009
  • Event Proceedings
  • Storage

The concept of this workshop was previously proposed to the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG) by BRGM and Schlumberger, and following the approval of the workshop in principle, discussion was initiated in June 2008 at the IEA GHG Joint Network Meeting in New York. The suggestion was that CO₂ geological modelling for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) was an important topic not being adequately dealt with by the existing storage based research networks. Further discussions by these network groups concluded that this was indeed a gap, and that an initial workshop should be held to determine the viability of forming a separate network dealing solely with geological storage modelling.

Technical Report

Storage in Depleted Gas Fields

  • 1 March 2009
  • Storage

The initial specification required a desk-based study to: 1. Assess the future implications for CO₂ storage of future natural gas production trends, especially the potential future exploitation of fields with naturally-high CO₂ 2. Undertake a source-sink matching exercise, utilising the IEA GHG database on point source emissions and with due consideration to existing transport pipeline infrastructure. The specification specifically stated that ship transportation should not be considered; content; 3. Determine the potential role of enhanced gas recovery (CO₂-EGR) in CO₂ 4. Develop an analytical screening process/tool for the selection of gas fields suitable for CO storage; 2 storage, allowing ranking of opportunities and assessment of potential global CO₂ 5. Estimate CO storage capacity; 2 6. Provide a summary of opportunities around the world where CO storage costs in depleted gas fields; 2 storage in depleted gas fields could be feasible from both technological and economic perspectives

Technical Report

Upgraded calculator for CO₂ pipeline systems

  • 1 March 2009
  • Costs of CCUS
  • Transport

A contract to develop and upgrade the original Woodhill program and the network program was awarded to Gastec UK/AMEC who had already produced the new network design program. After obtaining the original code from Woodhill-Frontier options were examined and it was felt that as both programs were Excel-based it would be simplest to amalgamate them into one program using the original Woodhill interface where possible.The possibility of adding a graphical map-based interface for the distributed collection network was investigated as an additional option but although possible the necessary licence for commercial use was found to be too costly. It was on this basis that GastecUK/AMEC proceeded with the development of the upgraded calculator.

Technical Report

Post Combustion capture – Solid Sorbents and Membranes

  • 1 February 2009
  • Capture

The aim of much of this research is cost reduction: to find a process that is cheaper than solvent scrubbing processes. NETL has produced a figure which plots the cost reduction benefits against the time to commercialisation, although both the benefits and the time are not specified (Figueroa and others, 2008).This report follows on from that on solvent scrubbing for post-combustion carbon capture from coal-fired power plants by considering the use of solid sorbents and membranes instead of solvents. First, mesoporous and microporous adsorbents are discussed: carbon-based adsorbents, zeolites, hydrotalcites and porous crystals. Attempts have been made to improve the performance of the porous adsorbent by functionalising them with nitrogen groups and specifically, amine groups to react with CO₂ and thus enhance the physical adsorption properties. Dry, regenerable solid sorbents have attracted a good deal of research. Most of the work has been on the carbonation/calcination cycle of natural limestone but there have also been studies of other calcium-based sorbents and alkali metal-based sorbents. Membranes have also been studied as potential post-combustion capture devices. Finally, techno-economic studies predicting the economic performance of solid sorbents and membranes are discussed

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