The report titled ‘Strategic Analysis of the Global Status of Carbon Capture and Storage’ reveals that the majority of advanced projects are focused on coal-fired power generation, recognising the need to implement solutions that address the world’s current and future use of coal in a carbon constrained environment.
The report suggested that in order to accelerate the deployment of CCS projects, the world must exploit cost advantages that exist in advancing projects in developing countries such as China and India, and industries such as natural gas processing and fertiliser production in which CO2 capture is inherent in their design. The study also confirms that efforts towards CCS need to be made within the cement, aluminium, iron and steel industries.
The research was undertaken to advance the understanding of the status of CCS projects, the costs involved, the status of supporting policy initiatives, the research and developments efforts being pursued, and the gaps and barriers to deployment at scale.
The report showed that there are 213 active or planned projects. There are 62 fully integrated, commercial scale projects each of which demonstrates every stage of the CCS process chain of CO2 capture, transport and storage. Out of these, seven are already operating and 55 are at various stages of progress making them potential candidates for contributing to the G8 objective.
The developers of fully integrated, commercial scale projects include participants in the Europe (37%), the US (24%), Australia (11%) and Canada (10%), with distribution throughout Asia, South America and Africa relatively low.
The report highlights that the CCS projects face high risk of failure, but that this can be overcome by targeted project support, and appropriate incentives for development. Recommendations put forward by the report call for governments to partner with industry to address the challenges facing project success.
The report recommends that urgent action has to be taken to: work with the 55 active or planned fully integrated projects to improve their likelihood of success; develop national strategies to provide incentives to innovate or invest in CCS technology; and establish a regulatory framework that assigns a value to carbon, resolves long-term storage liabilities and underwrites critical infrastructure.
