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Technology Collaboration Programme by IEA

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Discover the latest advances carbon capture and storage research

Technical Report

The Status and Challenges of CO₂ Shipping Infrastructures

  • 1 July 2020
  • Transport

Large-scale CO₂ storage will entail substantial transportation of CO₂ from either point-sources or hub collection points to geological formations capable of storing thousands of tonnes of CO₂ in supercritical form. In many parts of the world the most suitable storage options for large-scale capacity will be in offshore formations such as the North Sea. Consequently, it is important to build an understanding of the most suitable techno-economic solutions for the trans-shipment of CO₂ from shore facilities to offshore storage locations. This study has explored a series of options to gain a more detailed comparison of shipping CO₂ either directly by sea tanker to a storage site, or via an intermediate stage, to a shore facility in closer proximity to a storage site prior to transfer via pipeline. These options have also been compared to direct transfer via pipeline.

Technical Report

The Clean Refinery and the Role of Electricity Generation

  • 1 May 2020
  • Capture

The oil refinery sector faces significant challenges in response to the Paris Agreement’s 2050 projections for carbon emission reductions. Moreover, there is a global trend to process significant amounts of heavy, sour crude to produce high value products, such as ultra-low-sulphur diesel and gasoline, to achieve better refinery margins as well as meeting stringent environmental standards including green-house gas emission reductions. The option of CO₂ emission free electricity generation within refineries can help to meet these goals. The primary aim of this study was to explore the role of the ‘clean refinery’ concept and how it could contribute to the Paris Agreement’s long-term objective to curb peak global greenhouse gas emissions. Various options for refineries are available depending, not only on the complexity and degree of integration, but also on whether a refinery already exists or is still at the planning stage. In addition to these general considerations, the regional location, crude mix and local markets for refined products and electricity all influence the design, complexity and economic viability of ‘clean refineries’. p>

Technical Review

4th International Workshop on Offshore Geologic CO₂ Storage

  • 30 April 2020
  • Event Proceedings
  • Storage

The 4th International Workshop on Offshore Geologic CO₂ Storage was held 11-12 February 2020, hosted by the University of Bergen in conjunction with the EU-Funded STEMM-CCS project in Norway. The workshop addressed how to develop CCS projects with offshore storage and built on the recommendations and topics raised at the previous workshops. The aim of the workshop series is to facilitate sharing of knowledge and experiences among those who are doing offshore CO₂ storage and those who are interested, and to facilitate international collaboration on projects. Over 150 attendees from 18 countries participated in this 4th workshop.

Technical Report

IEAGHG Monitoring & Environmental Research Combined Networks Meeting

  • 1 March 2020
  • Event Proceedings
  • Storage

The 13th meeting of IEAGHG’s Monitoring Network was this year combined with the Environmental Research Network, to facilitate wider topic broaching and encourage broader discussions. This combined networks meeting was held from 20th – 22nd August 2019 at the University of Calgary, Canada. The two day meeting was preceded by a field trip to the Containment and Monitoring Institute (CaMI) field research station site visit. It was followed by a one day workshop on faults and their significance for CO? storage (report number 2020-03). The meeting was designed to cover the following themes: developments in sensing ; lessons from managing field projects; uncertainty in quantification; monitoring for EOR compared with deep saline formations; fall-back plans; new case studies with real data; environmental impacts of monitoring and stakeholder engagement; up-well leakage; and monitoring post-injection for closure.

Technical Report

IEAGHG Faults and their Significance for Large-Scale CO₂ Storage Workshop 

  • 1 March 2020
  • Event Proceedings
  • Storage

The success of CO? Capture and Storage (CCS) technology depends on the safe, secure and long-term storage of CO? at large-scale (mega tonnes per site). Upward migration and leakage of injected CO? along faults is a key risk. The aim of the workshop was to gain a greater understanding on how faults could influence long-term storage of CO?. The workshop built on oil and gas industry experiences, as well as the research community, to gain a clear perspective on fault properties that are important to CO? storage. The 1-day event provided an opportunity to review laboratory experiments, field studies, and modelling results, to gain insights on the importance of faults for CO? storage. Current practices to evaluate fault seal as well as critical technical gaps were discussed. The workshop gave an opportunity to review current research on CO? controlled release experiments and what could be learned from them, plus the contribution from simulations. The 1-day event documented critical issues for CO? storage related to faults, the experience of current experimental work, and identify remaining gaps in knowledge.

Technical Review

Agenda Workshop on Hydrogen Production with CCS

  • 21 February 2020
  • Capture
  • Event Proceedings

Hydrogen is a key raw material to other energy intensive industries. Globally, nearly 90% of the hydrogen produced industrially is consumed by the ammonia, methanol and oil refining industries. Moreover, hydrogen could soon play a significant role in the decarbonisation of power, space heating (i.e. industrial, commercial, building and residential heating) and transport fuel (i.e. use of fuel cell vehicles). Although the steam methane reformer route (SMR) is the leading technology for H2 production from natural gas or light hydrocarbons, there are other mature and emerging alternatives. Similarly, while increasing the process efficiency has shown a CO₂ emissions reduction of nearly 10%, CCS has been identified as a key strategy to cut down CO₂ emissions from hydrogen production. Against this background the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) decided to map activities on hydrogen production with CCS in member states and elsewhere. One conclusion of that exercise was to hold workshop with other organisations. A steering committee was formed to organise this workshop, held on November 6th 2019, and hosted by EDF and Club CO₂. This workshop was held for one day, devoted to a plenary session addressing three general topics, and including 90 attendees from 19 countries. Each session included several invited presentations, followed by a discussion among the workshop attendees. This document presents brief summaries of the three plenary sessions topics and one break-out session where all attendees were able to contribute.

Technical Report

Monitoring and Modelling of CO₂ Storage: The Potential for Improving the Cost-Benefit Ratio of Reducing Risk

  • 1 February 2020
  • Storage

The study was proposed with the intention of developing an understanding of where future research efforts in CO₂ storage technologies should be focused on in the next decade, informing the potential directions for future research in order to fully maximise the potential benefits of storage technologies to commercial-scale CCS projects.

Technical Review

CO₂stCap (Cutting Cost of CO₂ Capture in Process Industry)

  • 1 November 2019
  • Capture
  • Costs of CCUS

The CO₂StCap project (Cutting Cost of CO₂ Capture in Process Industry), led by SINTEF, was a research initiative (2015-2019) funded by the Norwegian CLIMIT-Demo programme via Gassnova and the Swedish Energy Agency. The CO₂StCap research partners were SINTEF, the University of South-Eastern Norway, Chalmers University of Technology, RISE, and Swerim AB. The industries involved were SSAB, Elkem AS, Norcem Brevik AS, and AGA Gas AB. IEAGHG and GCCSI supported the project. The CO₂StCap project investigated CO₂ partial capture configurations for cement, pulp and paper, steel, and silicon for solar cells industries. The CO₂ capture technology investigated in this project was a MEA-based chemical absorption system, which includes an optimized rich-solvent splitting and absorber inter-stage cooling. The capture rates considered are dependent on the inputs of the specific cases, such as plant characteristics, CO<sub>2</sub> stacks, CO<sub>2</sub> concentration in the flue-gas to be treated, and supply of heat/energy. The CO₂StCap project contained a transparent cost assessment, which includes the capital and operational expenditures (CAPEX and OPEX) for retrofitting cases. The main cost metric used in this study is the CO₂ capture cost (€/tonne of CO₂ captured) and the main elements are described in detail. Steam generation for the CO₂ capture system was identified as a key cost element. The steam sources investigated were: steam produced from the excess heat; from a new boiler; and from a low-pressure bleed from existing steam cycles. Other key cost elements identified in this study are the plant lifetime and rate of return. The CO₂StCap project also investigated the use of biomass in different sectors and hydrogen in the steel industry.

Technical Review

Integrated GHG accounting guidelines for CCUS

  • 1 November 2019
  • Policy & Regulation

This report sets out accounting guidelines for measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and emissions reduction effects arising from technologies involving carbon dioxide capture, utilisation and geological storage (CCUS).The guidelines apply a project- and product-based approach to measure GHG emission reduction effects, based on comparing the emissions for a CCUS activity with the emissions from a comparable activity delivering the same product or service.A modular approach is applied. Firstly, users calculate the GHG effects arising from the capture (and transport) of CO₂ based on the avoided emissions from providing the same service or product as output from the CO₂ source facility, but without CO₂ capture.The resulting estimate of GHG effects from CO₂ capture is carried forward to the utilisation or storage step. In this subsequent step, the GHG emissions from providing the same service without using captured CO₂ is estimated and compared to the GHG emissions of providing the service using captured CO₂. This provides an overall estimate of the cradle-to-gate GHG effect of CCUS activities.Additional guidance is provided on cradle-to-grave assessment, although this is not the primary focus of these guidelines – the Guidelines focus on annualised GHG emissions accounting cycles rather than whole life emissions analysis.

Technical Report

CO₂ capture in LNG

  • 1 October 2019
  • Capture
  • Costs of CCUS

Natural gas demand is forecasted to grow continuously for the next 10 years, playing a vital role in the global energy mix in 2030. in the specific case of liquefied natural gas, projections indicate a continued upward growth. The majority of near-term growth in liquefaction capacity is likely to happen in North America and Australia, although a number of other projects have the potential to add significant liquefaction capacity in the long term as well.

Technical Report

Further Assessment of Emerging CO₂ Capture Technologies for the Power Sector and their Potential to Reduce Costs

  • 1 September 2019
  • Capture
  • Costs of CCUS

CSIRO was commissioned by IEAGHG to provide a comprehensive assessment of emerging CO<sub>2</sub> capture technologies for the power sector and their potential to reduce costs. The objectives of this technical study were:<!-- wp:acf/columns {"name":"acf/columns","data":{"padding_top":"1","_padding_top":"field_columns_fields_padding_top","padding_bottom":"1","_padding_bottom":"field_columns_fields_padding_bottom","margin_top":"0","_margin_top":"field_columns_fields_margin_top","margin_bottom":"0","_margin_bottom":"field_columns_fields_margin_bottom"},"mode":"preview"} --> <!-- wp:acf/column-content {"name":"acf/column-content","mode":"preview"} --> <!-- wp:list --><ul> <!-- wp:list-item --><!-- wp:list-item --><li>to update the CO<sub>2</sub> capture benchmark technology and its enhancement over the 30w.t.% MEA-based chemical absorption</li><!-- /wp:list-item --><!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --><!-- wp:list-item --><li>to review the CO<sub>2</sub> capture technologies, their current status and trajectory</li><!-- /wp:list-item --><!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --><!-- wp:list-item --><li>to assess the potential of emerging CO<sub>2</sub> capture systems to reduce costs (LCOE) and identify risks and barriers for those on the path to TRL 9</li><!-- /wp:list-item --><!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --><!-- wp:list-item --><li>to assess techno-economically a number of selected CO<sub>2</sub> capture technologies for coal and gas-fired power plants.</li><!-- /wp:list-item --><!-- /wp:list-item --> </ul><!-- /wp:list --> <!-- /wp:acf/column-content --> <!-- /wp:acf/columns -->

Technical Review

Guide to Front End Engineering Design studies for selected CO₂ Capture and Storage Projects

  • 1 September 2019
  • Capture
  • Storage

This review aims to assess the current understanding on reducing emissions from flaring in the oil and gas industry and to review literature on both the quantification of emissions and current mitigation strategies. IEAGHG published a technical review 2017-TR7 (Oct 2017) which studied emissions along the natural gas supply chain but flaring emissions were not included. This review aims to follow on from 2017-TR7 as a supplementary review on flaring emissions.

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