CCS: Is it Really That Far Off

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Peter L. Gray

The new fashionable observation in energy circles is that Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is not ready for prime time.

US News and World Report ran a feature making the point a couple weeks back. Now Energy Secretary Steven Chu made the same point at a DC energy conference this week. The secretary told audience members that "CCS" technology might not be ready for "serious deployment" for eight to 10 years.

Really? Every time I turn around, I read about another carbon storage and sequestration project that is up and running or about to be.

Here is a sampling:

  • Later this month, a gas power plant in France will begin using CCS equipment which will send the plant's emissions deep below the earth's surface.
     
  • Swedish utility Vattenfall is operating a 1,600-megawatt coal-fired Schwarze Pumpe plant in Spremberg, Germany, which captures 9 metric tons of CO2 per hour at full load from a 30-megawatt oxyfuel boiler. The CO2 is condensed into a liquid and sold to companies like Coca-Cola for carbonation in beverages or to oil companies for use in enhanced oil recovery.
     
  • Over a decade ago, Petro Source Carbon Company (now the carbon developer Blue Source) entered into a partnership with an affiliate of BP to construct an 82 mile, 10-inch CO2 pipeline in West Texas known as the Val Verde Pipeline. CO2 is dehydrated, compressed, and then transported through the pipeline to an existing distribution system in the Permian Basin of West Texas where it is used in enhanced oil recovery operations.

Those are three commercially viable examples of CCS technology at work.

Why so pessimistic, Mr. Secretary?
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