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Review of CO₂ Storage Basalts

1 January 2017
Storage

This technical review has been undertaken with the aim of providing a high level overview of the current status of basalts as an option for the geological storage of CO₂. The review also includes a short section on the storage potential of ultramafic rocks.<br />Two high profile sites, CarbFix in Iceland and the Wallula project in Washington State have both injected and monitored CO₂ storage in basalts since 2012 and research has recently been published for both sites. Basalts are important storage sites to consider for CCS as they comprise approximately 10% of the Earth’s surface and are often located in areas where no other storage options exist. Basalts have a high weight percentage of Ca, Mg and Fe rich minerals which react with CO₂ to form carbonates. At the pilot projects Wallula and CarbFix, in-situ carbonisation has been proven to occur and within much shorter timescales than initially predicted. In conventional deep sandstone aquifer storage sites, CO₂ remains buoyant for 1,000s to 100,000s of years and consequently this form of storage relies predominately on structural and solution trapping within the reservoirs to prevent CO₂ leakage.

Technical Review

National Storage CO₂ Assessment Guidance

1 October 2016
Storage

This guide provides information on where to find the material required to undertake initial national scale storage assessments. It is designed to help government bodies and policy makers with limited prior carbon capture and storage (CCS) experience find information regarding the methodology of conducting an assessment. A nationwide storage estimate is fundamental to progress CCS as a climate mitigation technology as it will determine how suitable the regional geology is for CO₂ storage and provide an initial indication of capacity.

Technical Review

Review of Project Permits Under the London Protocol - As Assessment of the Proposed P18-4 CO₂ Storage Sites

1 May 2016
Policy & Regulation
Storage

The London Convention and Protocol is one of the first global agreements to protect the marine environment. The 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 wastes. In 2007, an amendment entered into force which permitted CO₂ streams to be considered for dumping under the London Protocol. The amendment was shortly followed up with a set of “Specific Guidelines for Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Streams for Disposal into Sub-seabed Geological Formations”, developed to support the National Authorities of Contracting Parties in evaluating permit applications for CO₂ disposal activities in their marine territories. As few offshore CO₂ storage sites have been permitted in the territories of Contracting Parties, there is no evidence of the application of the above mentioned guidelines to actual permitting processes. The P18-4 field is a near-depleted gas field at a depth of 3.5 km under the seabed, located approximately 20 km off the Dutch coast in the North Sea. The operator of the gas field applied for a CO₂ storage permit to the Dutch authorities in 2011, for the storage of a maximum of 8 Mton CO₂. An irrevocable storage permit for P18-4 was provided to the operator in September 2013, however the project has been postponed indefinitely due to economic constraints. The objective of this report is to assess to what extent the proposed P18-4 storage site, originally part of the ROAD CCS Project, complies with the London Protocol’s 2012 Specific Guidelines for Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Streams for Disposal into Sub-seabed Geological Formations, and therefore the 1996 London Protocol itself. The assessment has been achieved through a simple, but systematic, cross-check of the requirements of the Specific Guidelines against the contents of the application material provided by the operator to the National Authority. This involves the appraisal of approximately 1100 pages of submitted material in order to identify evidence of compliance

Technical Review

Review of GHG Accounting Rules for CCS

1 May 2016
Policy & Regulation

This report aims to provide a comparative review of how current rules for compiling and reporting inventories of GHG emissions and removals, and for MRV of GHG emissions and removals (hereafter collectively termed “GHG accounting rules”) apply to CCS activities worldwide. These include international, regional and national approaches employed under policies and measures such as mandatory GHG emissions reporting, carbon taxes and emission trading schemes (ETS). The report will identify any significant differences between accounting protocols for CCS, the reasons for differences, and any issues that might arise from their differences. It will identify issues, gaps and potential barriers emerging from the review and possible measures that could be taken to support CCS deployment.

Technical Review

International Workshop on Offshore Geological CO₂ Storage

1 May 2016
Event Proceedings
Storage

The aims of the workshop were to undertake a global needs assessment for offshore geological CO₂ storage, to initiate a discussion about the various aspects of offshore transport and storage, and to build an international community of parties interested in offshore storage. This was achieved by bringing together those who are doing offshore CCS to share knowledge with those who are interested in doing, and by facilitating countries to identify their specific issues, challenges, opportunities, and then to identify synergies, common gaps and goals, and define common action items.

Technical Review

Evaluation of Barriers to National CO₂ Geological Storage Assessments

1 February 2016
Storage

This report is the published product of a study undertaken for the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) to assess barriers to high-level geological CO₂ storage assessments for the Clean Energy Ministerial. This review was undertaken by the CO₂ Storage team of the British Geological Survey on behalf of UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Korean Clean Energy Ministry to support the work of the CSLF. The review was funded by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Korean Clean Energy Ministry. The project was managed by the IEA Greenhouse Gas Research and Development Programme (IEA-GHG). The survey responses expressed and analysed in this report are based on publicly available information and the views of respondents to a questionnaire and follow-up interviews. The responses do not necessarily reflect the view of authorities or government policies for the countries included in the survey.

Technical Review

CCS deployment

1 July 2015
Policy & Regulation

Meeting the long-term goal to limit global temperature rises to 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels requires large-scale deployment of low carbon technologies such as CCS. According to the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), without additional efforts to reduce emissions, global mean surface temperatures are likely to increase between 3.7 and 4.8oC by 2100 compared to pre-industrial levels. Scenarios that keep the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ to around 450 ppm by 2100 (66 per cent chance) are consistent with holding a rise in global temperatures to below 2°C – the long-term goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Such scenarios involve deep cuts in GHG emissions over the coming decades, requiring radical changes to energy systems and a step-change in the uptake of low carbon technologies.

Technical Review

Carbon Storage FY2015 Peer Review

1 April 2015
Storage

Between March 2nd and 6th, IEAGHG convened a panel of five leading academic and industry experts to conduct a five-day peer review of 12 research projects supported by the NETL Carbon Storage Program. At the conclusion of each project review, these recognized technical experts provided recommendations on how to improve the management, performance, and overall results of each individual research project. The panel was supported by Tim Dixon (Facilitator), James Craig and Samantha Neades, IEAGHG. The Carbon Storage program is focused on developing and advancing technologies to enable safe, cost-effective, permanent geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) both onshore and offshore in different depositional systems. The technologies being developed will benefit both industrial and power sector facilities that will need to mitigate future CO₂ emissions. The program also serves to increase understanding of the effectiveness of these advanced technologies and management approaches in different geologic reservoirs appropriate for CO₂ storage, and improve the ability to understand the behavior of CO₂ in the subsurface.

Technical Review

2014-TR4 Emerging Capture Technologies

1 December 2014
Capture
Costs of CCUS

This Technical Review gives an interim overview of research and development aimed at improving and reducing the cost of commercial scale carbon dioxide capture in the power and process industries. It considers technologies principally applicable in post-combustion capture, pre-combustion capture, oxy-combustion capture and finally systems with circulating solids; in that order, which is more or less in line with the current maturity of each approach. It then goes on to consider applications in iron and steel and cement production and oil refining. IEAGHG’s normal practice is for its reports to be sent to external reviewers and for the reviewers’ comments to be taken into account prior to publication. This Technical Review is an interim report which has not yet gone through this process. An IEAGHG Report which has been subject to external review will be published in due course.

Technical Review

IEAGHG 2013 RCSP Peer Review Summary

1 May 2014
Storage

The 2013 international independent expert review of the RCSP had the following aims: 1. To follow up progress in addressing the recommendations of the second review in 2011 of the RCSP Initiative and their Phase III projects. 2. To assess the progress on the individual Phase III projects and consider whether the proposed technical work program for each project achieves the individual projects goals and those of the overall RCSPs. Inherent in this assessment will be the identification of any gaps or modifications that are necessary to the individual work program to address both the projects and the overall RCSP goals. 3. To assess results and key findings from the Phase III tests across the RCSP Initiative as they relate to the DOE/NETL Program goals. 4. To assess the overall technical integration of the RCSP Initiative, address the synergies between the eight Phase III projects and how they complement each other and how collectively they will provide a technical basis for future commercial scale projects in the USA. 5. To assess how the RCSP compares/compliments/contrasts with similar projects underway worldwide and how the information from these projects contributes to an international knowledge base on CO₂ capture and storage

Technical Review

Review of CO₂ storage in low perm strata

1 October 2013
Storage

This review has summarised a detailed assessment of South Africa’s geological storage potential which is the most comprehensive for a country with both conventional and alternative (low permeability) options. The relevance of the experimental Longyearbyen site has been reviewed partly because of its relevance to South Africa. Brief consideration of India and South Korea has also been included because they too face the dilemma of limited, or unproven, alternatives to large scale conventional reservoirs.

Technical Review

Mineralisation - Carbonation and Enhanced Weathering

1 July 2013
Storage
Utilisation

This technical review is an update of a 2005 IEAGHG review of mineralisation as means of CO₂ sequestration, which concluded “Significant breakthroughs are needed but obstacles to be overcome are considerable”. This review confirms that view and concludes that recent research initiatives are unlikely to lead to technically and economically viable CO₂ sequestration processes. An insurmountable barrier is the scale of mineral handling that would be required for CO₂ absorption by a mineral at a coal-fired power station. The amount of igneous mineral material to be mined, processed and returned to the ground would involve materials handling at an order of magnitude greater scale than the scale of the coal mining operation that provided the fuel that is burned to produce the CO₂. That would result in significant environmental consequences and life-cycle energy demands

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