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Capture ready
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Carbon dioxide capture and storage, usually known as CCS, has not been fully commercially proven, the concept of “capture ready” (or “capture readiness”, “carbon capture ready”, “carbon capture readiness”) is increasingly used without clarity of its meaning all the time, actually “capture ready” is a design concept enabling fossil fuel plants to be retrofitted more economically with CCS technologies. “Capture ready” should not be restricted to capture alone in the sense that a CCS project will need to be integrated across capture, transport and storage. Accordingly, the concept of “capture ready” should ideally incorporate plant siting to allow as much as possible of the captured CO2 to be transported to the storage site in order to lower the total cost of the whole CCS process. There are three basic alternatives, firstly “capture ready” (CR) investments can be avoided by hoping that current plant designs enable future retrofit; secondly, construction of new plant can be prohibited until CCS is ready to be installed from the outset; thirdly, varying degrees of CR can be stipulated by regulation. In the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide published on January 2008, “capture ready” is defined as follows: * Suitable space on the installation site for the equipment necessary to capture and compress CO2, plus assessments of * The availability of suitable storage sites and * Suitable transport facilities, and * The technical feasibility of retrofitting for CO2 capture. Overview of Capture Ready Following the G8 Gleneagles Plan of Action, the IEA was invited to investigate the definition of “capture ready” that would avoid capture "lock-in" and lower retrofit costs. The UK Energy Review published in April 2006 also indicated the importance of exploring “capture ready” technologies. IEA CO2 Capture Ready Plants Report released in April 2007 revealed that without “capture readiness”, every new power plant built would lock in high CO2 emissions for a generation to come. There is an urgent need to define the criteria for ensuring that new coal-fired plants, especially those burning pulverized coal, will be Capture Ready. Carbon Capture Ready indeed means very little to coal-fired power stations now being considered in Britain, according to a report commissioned by WWF-UK. "Currently, claims of CCS readiness do little more than refer to the need for power plants to leave space on the site for CCS equipment to be retrofitted in the future," says Keith Allott, Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK. Edinburgh University’s Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage (SCCS) expressed concern that the “capture ready” label legitimized a ‘build now, capture later’ mindset in the UK, with the eventual retrofit highly uncertain if governments did not add legal requirements to the impetus from carbon trading and pricing. In China, “capture ready” is viewed as crucial, although somewhat hampered by the lack of incentives and policy support. Most Chinese key stakeholders believe CCS necessary to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, although some of them perceive CCS technologies as fairly risky and only partially mature. China is developing a number of its own CCS research and potentially commercial projects as well as being actively involved in international collaborations. Capture Ready Plant Concept & Working Definition for Capture Ready Power Plants It should be noted immediately that there is no agreed definition of “capture-ready” power plant. For the purposes of this study, it has therefore been necessary to define some terms of reference. The authors have therefore adopted the approach outlined below which, although it still does not offer a formal definition, attempts to identify those issues which are pertinent to capture ready plants. A CO2 capture-ready power plant is a plant which can include CO2 capture when the necessary regulatory or economic drivers are in place. The aim of building plants that are capture-ready is to avoid the risk of stranded assets or “carbon lock-in”. Developers of capture-ready plants should take responsibility for ensuring that all known factors in their control that would prevent installation and operation of CO2 capture have been eliminated. This might include: * A study of options for CO2, capture retrofit and potential pre-investments * Inclusion of sufficient space and access for the additional facilities that would be required * Identification of reasonable route(s) to storage of CO2 Competent authorities involved in permitting power plants should be provided with sufficient information to be able to judge whether the developer has met these criteria. Essential Capture Ready Requirements As a minimum, a capture-ready plant should have eliminated all the factors that would prevent a retrofit taking place. A key requirement for any retrofit technology is clearly that there should be enough space available to accommodate all of the new plant that needs to be fitted whilst retaining sufficient access to both existing and new plant both during construction and operation. Accordingly one of the key goals of any assessment of a plant for capture readiness should include an assessment of the plant elements that would be required for a retrofit, their place in the plant layout and their physical size. A further key element in the assessment of a site for capture-readiness is that it should have identified a credible route to storage of the CO2, once captured including a credible method of shipping or piping the CO2 to that sink. Such issues are clearly specific to a particular site and are not dealt with in this report. However it is essential that any company seeking to develop a plant that may be used for capture has fully assessed potential sinks for the material and has, as far as reasonable, ascertained that they will be legal, durable and accessible. It is possible that law on CO2, storage will take some time to stabilize so will not be fully defined when a capture-ready plant is permitted and built. Possible Capture Ready Pre-Investment Options There are numerous pre-investment options. These may or may not be adopted depending on a project developer’s view of their cost-effectiveness and desirability, particularly the degree of lock-in to a particular technology. The possible options for each generating technology are reviewed for a number of technologies in the following sections. The Dispute of Capture Ready Requiring new coal-fired plants to be ‘capture ready’ is not sufficient. Due to technical and economic uncertainties of CCS, there is no guarantee that CCS would be retrofitted at the sites concerned. Overall, the challenges of this approach include regulating a technology under development, before its actual properties are well known, developing the skills to build and operate the technology, and to guarantee future retrofitting once the new generation capacity is built and entrenched. Relative Concepts Carbon capture and storage (CCS) Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigating global warming based on capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from large point sources such as fossil fuel power plants. It can also be used to describe the scrubbing of CO2 from ambient air as a geo-engineering technique. Carbon Lock-in If a fossil fuel plant for which the technology and/or design is such that it would not be economic to convert the unit to enable CO2 capture, then its CO2 emissions are said to be locked in as they can only be reduced by closure of the unit. Commission proposal for a Directive on the geological storage of carbon dioxide, Article 32 “Member states shall ensure that all combustion plants with a capacity of 300 megawatts or more for which the original construction license or, in the absence of such a procedure, the original operating license is granted after the entry in to force of Directive xx/xx/EC of the European Parliament and the European Council, have suitable space on the installation site for the equipment necessary to capture and compress CO2 and that the availability of suitable storage sites, suitable transport facilities and the technical feasibility of retrofitting for CO2 capture have been assessed.” See Also * Carbon capture and storage * Carbon cycle re-balancing * Carbon sink * Carbon dioxide * Global warming * Greenhouse gas See Also
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