Signing off on CCS

Capturing the carbon dioxide produced from Alberta’s oil and gas industry has long been a priority for the Alberta government, to the tune of $2 billion in funding for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Most recently, $285 million of that funding has been allocated to the Swan Hills Synfuels project, which is using in-situ technologies to convert previously unreachable coal into syngas.

The project represents the deepest underground coal gasification ever attempted and is expected to produce 300 megawatts of power generation capacity.

And the estimated 1.3 tonnes of recovered CO2 won’t be wasted. Instead, it will be injected into wells in the Swan Hills area to reduce the viscosity of the oil and make it easier to extract. Such enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects represent one of the most practical industry uses for CCS technologies.

Via the Government of Alberta

CCS Update

Burning fossil fuels results in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂), a greenhouse gas linked to climate change. One of the ways of reducing these emissions is carbon capture and storage. CCS involves, capturing the CO₂ at the source – large emitters such as power stations or industrial plants. The CO₂ is then trucked or piped to where it can be injected into deep geologic formations where it remains instead of being emitted into the atmosphere.

Crude oil reservoirs are well-suited for storing CO₂. They are deep, sealed by the same rocks that have sealed in the oil, and, in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects, injecting CO₂ helps to recover more oil.

The most studied CCS/EOR project is the Weyburn field in Saskatchewan, where more than 13 million tonnes of CO₂ have been injected since 2000. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 3.5 million cars off the road for one year.

But there are others. FLOW looked at some CCS projects two years ago. Enhance Energy’s Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), a pipeline that will take CO₂ from large emitters in Fort Saskatchewan and Strathcona County to oilfields in south-central Alberta, received approval under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in September 2010. Construction on the capture facilities could begin as soon as 2012, and on the pipeline itself in 2013. When fully operational, it will have the same impact as taking 2.6 million passenger vehicles off the road.

TransAlta, Capital Power, TransCanada and Enbridge are partners in Project Pioneer, which is designed to capture one million tonnes of CO₂ per year from the Keephills 3 coal-fired electricity generation plant near Edmonton. The CO₂ will then be used in EOR projects or injected into deep saline aquifers. One million tonnes of CO2 is roughly equivalent to the emissions from 182,000 passenger vehicles.

Capital Power is also involved in a similar project at the Genessee 3 power plant. Husky Energy has a project underway that captures CO₂ from its Lloydminster ethanol plant for injection into its nearby heavy oil fields. Arc Resources began injecting CO₂ at its Redwater oilfield in 2008. Although still in the testing phase, results have been encouraging.

To learn more about Carbon Capture and Storage visit the ICO2N and watch the videos Addressing Climate Change, Alberta Saline Aquifer Project – From Earth and Back Again and Safe Storage – Closing the Carbon Loop.

An environmentalist, an oilman, a politician, a journalist and a rock star walk into a bar…

If Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology was a rock star, just what kind of rock star would it be… a notorious rock star or a renowned rock star? Will CCS be famous for being famous, a feat that often draws sneers from the musical elite, or will it stand the test of time and go down in the books as “the real deal”?

This year, FLOW has been following the CCS debate while the technology continues to make rock star status among industry, major politicians and media in North America. Since we labour under the assumption that the rock star is an apt analogy as the technology deals with underground rock formations, we’d like to explore this question further.

As a preamble, CCS is defined by the Alberta Government as “capturing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources and transporting them by pipeline to sites where they are injected into deep rock formations for permanent storage.” CCS technology can also be used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) where CO2 is pumped underground and used as a solvent to lessen the viscosity of the oil, allowing it to flow more freely from hard-to-reach places.

In a January FLOW article we explored the different sides of the CCS debate and discovered a range of different attitudes towards CCS that changed markedly from profession to profession. We noticed that environmental groups in particular are hesitant to buy the T-shirt.

“It’s an unproven technology,” said Jeh Custer, Northwestern Energy Campaigner with the Sierra Club. “To think that we’re going to take carbon and put it under the ground and it will be there for hundreds or thousands of years seems overly reliant on technological solutions.”

Industry players, of course, are singing a different tune. And who could blame them? CCS technology represents a means to curb greenhouse gases without cutting down production. It could be used for oil sands, fertilizer production, coal plants, multiple emitters, single emission sources, you name it.

Politicians, as of late, seem to be big fans of CCS. Soon after Barack Obama’s visit with Stephen Harper in February, Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt came to Calgary to announce $140 million in funding going to eight CCS projects in Western Canada. In a March FLOW article, these eight projects represented a microcosm of the greater CCS puzzle in which various facets of the technology are applied in different situations and on a commercial scale. Among Raitt’s glowing reviews of CCS, the Minister said, “I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of this technology… We can’t turn our backs on the energy and the wealth that our fossil fuels generate, but we have the responsibility to make sure it is generated sustainably.”

So judging by environmentalists, we’re dealing with a notorious rock star – famous in an unfavourable light. Judging by politicians and industry players, CCS rocks.

But what about media?

Media have clearly had some mixed views about it. The best way to capture this is through an example of two different media outlets covering the same CCS story.

A paper published in the April 2 issue of journal Nature revealed the findings of a study in which scientists observed nine gas fields that had been naturally filled with carbon dioxide millions of years ago. The study was meant to see how long the natural CO2 had been there. Of course, the crux of the CCS argument is the assumption that CO2, once pumped underground, will stay there forever.

Article A was entitled ‘Greenhouse gases stay buried for millions of years, say scientists’. OK, so far so good. Article B was entitled ‘Nature’s underground carbon stores aren’t rock solid’. Sounds like a pretty mixed bag of attitudes towards our rock star.

While we’re on the topic, we might as well explore what each outlet had to say about the study. The first article suggests the new research may present “the strongest case yet for an emerging technology.” The article briefly mentions CCS skeptics’ concern about its long-term environmental effects, and then outlines the results, saying, “they found the gases have stayed in underground pools of water for eons.” The article also touts the research as “being hailed as the first study to actually show how carbon dioxide is stored in natural-gas fields.”

Article B, on the other hand, essentially demotes the “rock” in our rock star to just a bunch of fizzy water. It means that, since CO2 is more readily absorbed by water than rock, it could eventually leak to the surface as water sometimes does.

Werner Aeschbach-Hertig, Heidelberg University researcher is quoted in the article as saying, “Clearly, mineral trapping is the preferable pathway, as it promises to store the carbon over geological time scales.”

So much for storage.

But maybe we shouldn’t jump to such quick conclusions. If you think about it, the concept of storing natural gas is a proven technology. For decades companies have been pulling natural gas from the ground and putting it back for storage when prices and demand go down. Natural gas is similar to CO2, so who’s to say the same scenario wouldn’t work in a carbon sequestration context?

Granted, Article B does dedicate a few paragraphs to show how these findings do not necessarily mean the end for CCS. “CO2 has been stored in these fields, in some cases, for millions of years,” said the study’s co-author, Sherwood Lollar, in the article. “So obviously, the very fact that it’s dissolved in water doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any less effective a storage mechanism than mineral precipitation.”

So we went from rock to water, but at the end of the day is CCS technology all just a bunch of hot air? This actually leads us to the most important question one should ask if we are going to compare CCS to a rock star. Is it a talented rock star? Meaning, is it good at what it purports to do?

Unfortunately, we can’t answer that question until we give this technology the time, money and resources for research. As far as using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, this is a known and proven technology, as exemplified by the Weyburn-Midale CO2 Project in southeastern Saskatchewan.

As far as getting the CO2 to sit underground and stay put, there is ample evidence that suggests it can be done but we’ll never truly know unless we try.

And that’s precisely the point for all CCS advocates. Even the rock star could tell you, practice makes perfect.

Can we make the shift from high- to low-carbon energy?

British analysts say that global investment in clean energy technologies has been undermined by the widening recession, meaning that the world is no longer on track to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Moreover, although the downturn also means short-term reductions in greenhouse gases, the long-term outlook is grim.

The analysts are with New Energy Finance (NEF) which provides information and research to investors in renewables, low-carbon technology and the carbon markets. Their latest report, presented March 4 to the NEF Summit in London, has as a baseline the estimated $155 billion (U.S.) invested in clean energy technologies, companies and projects last year.

 ”Our latest Global Futures report demonstrates that investment needs to reach $500 billion per annum by 2020 if CO2 emissions from the world’s energy system are to peak before 2020,” they say, adding that this looks highly unlikely. “Scientific experts fear that continued growth of emissions beyond 2015, or 2020 at the latest, would create the strongest risks of severe and irreversible climate change.

“The recession’s direct impact on CO2 emissions is likely to be moderate and certainly not enough to avert a continued upward trend,” the analysts say. Their baseline projection shows investment growing to $348 billion by 2020 and $461 billion in 2030 and they expect renewables will provide 26 per cent of all electricity by 2030. That compares with the average annual investment of $229 billion and 23 per cent of electricity generation by 2030 set out in an International Energy Agency (IEA) scenario.

The NEF 2009 baseline indicates that global energy-related CO2 emissions in 2030 will be some 11.5 per cent below the IEA scenario as a result of accelerated growth in renewables, coupled with lower energy intensity per unit of gross domestic product and faster “buildout” of carbon capture and sequestration capacity.

Installation of wind power capacity could moderate during the recession, but the volume of energy produced is expected to reach new highs over the longer term. The most prominent markets will be Europe, thanks to turbines’ proximity to markets and supportive policies, as well as in the United States and China.

Insofar as solar photovoltaics are concerned, they say cost-reduction progress is expected to yield “a wave of expansion” over the next two decades, assuming continued public support until the industry achieves full cost competitiveness. 

Their analysis also considers the impact on emissions of nuclear power, geothermal, biomass and biofuels, marine power and hydro and the impact of each in the base and peak scenarios is included in the report.

Guy Turner, NEF’s director of new carbon finance, said his division’s research indicates that climate change policies and specifically carbon cap-and-trade systems are making a material difference to shifting from high-carbon to low-carbon energy. “However, the Global Futures 2009 work is sobering: it shows that it just is not happening fast enough.”

Provinces must be at the table

GHG Reductions Initiatives Forum Report 3

“If ever there was a time not to read too much into the polls, that time is now.” So said Ron Stevens, Deputy Premier of Alberta and Minister of International & Intergovernmental Relations, during a speech to a Conference Board forum on greenhouse gases.

He was commenting on recent public opinion surveys which suggest that the economy is Canadians’ “top of mind” issue, but insisted that the environment in general and climate change in particular were still key concerns in Canadians’ psyche.

“They want to see action, especially when it comes to climate change,” he said, adding that Albertans and their provincial government were clearly onside in trying to minimize their oilsands’ carbon footprint without losing the economic drive from the second-largest reserve of crude in the world.

Stevens said he has “never seen a greater need for leadership” by the federal government but that the provinces had to be partners as the debate is moved aggressively ahead in a world in which a continental climate change accord will figure prominently in how energy is provided.

While Ottawa obviously had the lead, he pointed out that the Canadian Constitution requires provincial consent when international agreements affect provinces. The climate change debate was fundamentally about energy and how best to use natural resources, both of which fell squarely within provincial legislative and regulatory jurisdiction.

The Deputy Premier agreed that provincial jurisdiction could be used more effectively in terms of the scope and pace of resource development, building codes, energy efficiency, fuel standards and environmental responsibility, and all provinces have existing frameworks for industrial pollutants. “There is much we can bring to the table.”

He said Alberta has never sought a “free pass” on climate change. “Far from it” It was the first and still only North American jurisdiction with comprehensive GHG emissions caps for large emitters and that its carbon capture and storage (CCS) investment, enshrined in law, was already paying off.

“We intend to do more; we must do more, “Stevens said. “We can’t work in isolation; we need national consensus to bring certainty to our industry and stability to our economy.”

Bodies such as the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had acknowledged CCS to be a major part of the climate change solution and that recent support by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper was encouraging.

Asked whether interprovincial consensus was possible, he said there had to be “a basket of solutions” because “there is no one solution that fits all.” As for cap-and-trade as an option for Alberta if that was the North American trend, he said it is “one of the tools in the toolbox.”

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Through the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership, 80 U.S. and Canadian stakeholders are working together to make carbon dioxide capture and storage a viable option for combating climate change.  Read More  In 2008 the Centre for Energy in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted the ninth cross-border forum on energy issues. Seventy-five participants, including academics, policy makers and industry representatives assessed the importance of carbon capture and storage to Canada and the United States in developing resources and addressing climate change. The Centre for Energy sat down with the seven panelists who led the discussion at the forum. The interviews give listeners a technical, environmental and social perspective on carbon capture and storage. Listen In

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Capturing the CCS debate

In 2008, Carbon Sequestration and Storage (CCS) became a bigger topic around the water cooler; for industry people, scientists, media, and Canadians at large. After the Alberta government’s official endorsement of the technology earlier in the year and subsequent pledge of $2 billion to advance CCS research over the summer, this was the year CCS moved into the mainstream.

The Alberta funding is part of that province’s climate change plan, which was launched by Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach in early 2008. The plan aims to cut GHG emissions in the province in half by 2050. CCS technology is expected to contribute to 70 per cent of the total 200 megatonnes slated for reduction by that time.

Even the federal government seemed keen on pushing CCS with Harper’s $240 million funding announcement for what they are describing as “the world’s first and largest CCS demonstration projects at the Boundary Dam Power Station in Estevan Saskatchewan.

Climate change solution or just a bunch of hot air?

Everyone seems to have a perspective on CCS – whether they’re members of industry investing in its development, or NGOs that are intrinsically wary of industry and government touted solutions.

Environmental groups in particular often regard CCS as an unknown technology and are hesitant to jump on the bandwagon. The Sierra Club is a case in point. To find the organization’s views, one need look no further than their Coal FAQs: “If coal is to remain a part of our energy future, it must be mined responsibly, burned cleanly and guaranteed to not worsen global warming pollution. At this time, there is no existing coal technology that meets these standards, including Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) or carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).”

The Pembina Institute, on the other hand, is cautiously supportive of CCS. “There is no one green bullet,” says executive director Marlo Raynolds who believes CCS should be employed as part of a “portfolio” of climate change solutions. Raynolds says that Pembina has taken on the stance that, because Alberta is situated on sedimentary basins, oil sands operate on a geology that lends itself well to CO2 storage. “If we were in other parts of the world where we didn’t have that storage capacity, we would need to look for other options. For us CCS is one part of the solution.”

Percolating the debate even further is the presence of online forums in which citizens of all walks share their knowledge, questions and opinions about CCS. One such debate was fomented on the Canada’s Oil Sands website, which was launched early in the summer to provide a platform for people to air their concerns about oil sand development. The industry funded initiative, dubbed “a different conversation” saw the introduction of many discussion topics, and it wasn’t long before CCS was added to the mix.

“If you look at the hydrocarbons – oil, gas, bitumen and for that matter coal, they are essentially sequestered carbon, only carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago,” writes one contributor under the alias ‘Bill.’ “I think it is perfectly logical option to ‘resequester’ this same carbon in depleted oil and gas reservoirs where it once was sequestered. It would be sequestered as CO2 rather than as CH4 or other hydrocarbons. We have simply extracted the energy from it.”

The discussion on the site ranges from potential ground water impact to individual responsibility for reduction of emissions.

CCS in depth

Another voice in the debate is that of CCS advocate Dr. Eddy Isaac, Executive Director of Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI). While Isaac agrees with some concerns being raised – primarily the high cost required to test and implement – he regards CCS as a known technology with potential to address the emissions issue. Referring to the often cited challenge of transporting and storing the collected CO2, Isaac says it’s been happening everyday in the US for the last 30 years.

Already in a natural liquid state, companies have been pumping and transporting natural C02 from the ground as a solvent for enhanced oil recovery. A good example of this is the Weyburn-Midale CO2 Project in southeastern Saskatchewan which is home to a depleted oil reservoir containing deep underground rock formations called saline aquifiers. Transported via pipeline from a plant in Beulah North Dakota, pure streams of CO2 left over from the coal gasification process is injected into these underground formations for EOR. “The real challenge right now is being able to capture emitted CO2,” explains Isaac, adding the technology does exist, but is highly expensive to implement on the mass scale required to substantively reduce emissions. 

Another component in the equation is storage. Isaac says this is being done already, albeit on a smaller scale, as acid gas from gas plants containing a mixture of CO2 and hydrogen sulphide is regularly stored in what’s called, saline formations. According to Isaac, there are 50 projects currently underway that involve injecting acid gas into these formations, but bringing the technology into mass commercial use involves major costs that should eventually start decreasing. “We’re going a step further and saying in the long run we need to find other formations to put the CO2 in – yes we can use it for enhanced oil recovery, but in the long run we want to also just inject it and forget about it.”

But perhaps it’s not that simple. Recent research points out the energy intensive process of operating CCS technology, suggesting a new metaphor for the technology might be in order – the Ouroboros, more widely recognized as a snake eating its own tale. It is a representation of infinity or, less inspiring, the impossible or self-defeating. A recent study reveals the possibility that CCS could result in increased emissions, due to the additional energy required to power the very process that was supposed to reduce air pollution in the first place.

Says Science News, “When the researchers factored in all the “cradle to grave” pollution of a CO2-burying plant, emissions of acid rain-causing gases like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx) were up to 40 percent greater than the total cradle-to-grave emissions of a modern plant that doesn’t capture its CO2.”

Advocates of the technology, such as Isaac, believe this isn’t necessarily the case. “The technologies used in new power plants that will capture CO2 will be based on gasification technology or Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC),” he says, adding that although plants using IGCC technology are expensive and seldom used today, the technology is suited, in many respects, to bringing emissions down to zero. “The use of this technology reduces SOx and NOx by orders of magnitude compared to conventional pulverized coal technology. So while I believe we need to do life cycle analyses, all the data I have seen indicate much lower SOx and NOx emissions.”

Another solution for the CCS energy use conundrum comes from Stephen Kaufman, Chairman of the Integrated CO2 Network (ICO2N) an industry supported carbon capture and storage (CCS) system proposed for Canada. “By undertaking CO2 capture there is a loss in plant efficiency and more energy is required for the same output,” says Kaufman. “The CO2 emissions from this additional energy use will also be captured in the majority of cases”

CCS – a question of politics

While the challenges and solutions for CCS continue being posed, the debate also veers into political territory. Should the high cost to implement CCS become the responsibility of industry or taxpayers? Such is a topic experts from all representations seem to have an opinion about as well.

“It’s subsidizing industry through taxpayer dollars. We end up paying to clean up industry’s mess.” says Jeh Custer, Northwestern Energy Campaigner with the Sierra Club. Describing the announcement as industry’s “get out of jail free card” Custer says the technology ultimately allows them to continue business as usual. “It’s an unproven technology. To think that we’re going to take carbon and put it under the ground and it will be there for hundreds or thousands of years seems over reliant on technological solutions.”

Kaufman, on the other hand, says that research from ICO2N shows large-scale CCS will not proceed if left to the market alone as the investment risks in the early years are substantial. “CCS is ideal for a public-private partnership as this approach enables industry and, both provincial and federal, government to work together to address long-term policy, financial risk-sharing and regulatory issues,” says the chairman.

“Carbon sequestration is still a relatively new and expensive process,” says Jacob Irving, Executive Director of the Oil Sands Developers Group, adding that developing the Alberta oil sands was also expensive in the beginning. But as time passed and technology advanced, the cost to develop decreased substantially. “We expect the same would be true for carbon sequestration technology but only through the construction and generation of actual projects. And that can only happen with the ongoing efforts and investment of industry alongside the support of government through initiatives such as the recently announced CCS fund.”

Meanwhile, the wheels are already steering the CCS debate from the realm of talk and into the realm of action. The Alberta Government recently announced three Alberta test wells are slated for drilling in a “ground-breaking, long-term, large-volume CO2 sequestration project,” that will reach the end of the field test phase in June 2010. As well, with $2 billion flowing up the provincial pipes, many industry players and scientists are excited by the chance to push the technology so it can be brought to mass-scale commercial use. AERI, the organization responsible for fielding applications has been short-listing those proposals that demonstrate high potential for speed of development and ability to substantively reduce GHGs through CCS technology. Full project proposals will be submitted by early 2009 and the specific allocation of monies from the $2 billion CCS fund will be determined by March 31, 2009.

At that point, expect a little more conversation at the water cooler about CCS.