Opinion: SA backs Norway’s $1bn bid to advance carbon capture and storage

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South African energy and chemicals group Sasol has become the latest company to buy into the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), which is currently under construction in Norway, and which aims to further develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies – technologies viewed as a way to allow coal to continue playing a role in a energy provision, in a world where emitting carbon-dioxide (CO2) is an increasingly unacceptable and costly endeavour.

Sasol CO2 Manager Jaco Liebenberg tells Engineering News that the total budgeted capital cost for the TCM project is about $1-billion, of which Sasol acquired a 2,44% share of capital and operating costs.

The JSE-listed group has the opportunity participate on the project and second personnel to take part in various project opportunities at TCM. The company have two seats on the TCM technical committee, will have a deputy seat on the governing body of TCM, and will have involvement in the various operations.

The stake in the project was purchased from the Norwegian government, and allows the South African group, whose processes to make fuel and chemicals from coal are considered carbon heavy, full participation in technology development and demonstration, proving capture for diluted CO2 streams.

Sasol’s coal-to-liquid (CTL) processes already produce a concentrated CO2 stream, which could relatively easily be captured.

“Sasol is investigating the full spectrum of CCS opportunities available to enable the most optimal application and deployment of the technology. The current cost and efficiency losses of CCS are two of the hurdles that must be overcome to enable large-scale implementation of the technology. A large proportion of the cost of CCS is associated with the capture. Improvements in the cost of capture will therefore act as enabler for the implementation of large-scale CCS projects, which in itself will lead to further cost improvements in the overall technology value chain,” Liebenberg says.

He adds that the business model for CCS is still immature and requires the development of markets and regulatory regimes that are certain, and produce reliable indications of carbon pricing.

He tells Engineering News that the objectives of TCM are closely aligned with what needs to be accomplished to enable large-scale CCS projects, including: understanding the financial, regulatory and technical risks; developing and promoting the technology for widespread adoption; and international collaboration in the development of the technology.

Sasol has said that CCS is an “essential part” of a portfolio of solutions for reducing CO2 emissions, which the company is investigating through its New Energy unit.

In the group’s 2009 Sustainability Report, Sasol said that it has spent about R7-million in the past three years to investigate the potential for geological storage of CO2 in support of its various planned international CTL projects in the US, India and China.

These studies will provide an assessment of the available storage volumes and estimated project costs. To support this technical component, Sasol intends to conduct studies on existing policy frameworks in order to determine the likely future regulatory dispensations, taking into account the circumstances in each host country.

In South Africa, Sasol is a founding member of the South African centre for CCS, which is housed within the South African National Energy Research Institute, and headed by Dr Tony Surridge. Sasol contributed some R2-million to the centre in the financial year, which ended in June 2009.

Sasol has also co-sponsored the development of a South African Carbon Dioxide Storage Atlas to identify potential sites for geological storage of CO2 in South Africa. The Council for Geoscience (CGS) and the Petroleum Agency of South Africa started working on the atlas in September 2008 and it is scheduled for completion by August 2010.

Once the storage atlas is published, the Centre for CCS will seek to test an injection site, which will be identified to determine the suitability of local geology as a storage medium, as well as the dispersion and transformation of CO2 in South African rocks by 2016. It will also seek to establish a demonstration plant by 2020, which will test an integrated operating system under local conditions by injecting some 100 000 t of CO2 into storage sites. This, it is hoped, will lay the basis for commercial operations and the injection of millions of tons of CO2 into storage sites.

THE ROAD TO MONGSTAD

In Norway, meanwhile, TCM will test CO2 capture on two types of flue gases using two different capture technologies. One source of emissions is the existing catalytic cracker facility at Statoil’s Mongstad Refinery, and the other, is emissions from the gas fired combined heat and power plant (CHP), located next to the refinery, which is currently being commissioned.

The two technologies will be tested in parallel – amine technology from Norwegian company Aker Solutions, and chilled ammonia technology from French company Alstom. The companies are each responsible for engineering, procurement and construction of their own portion of the project.

Although other vendors were invited to participate, the choices of technologies were made by the TCM project on the basis of assessments of the technologies’ potential for improvements, possibilities of implementation as retrofit solutions, possibilities of full-scale application, technical maturity, environmental burden, and the possibilities of capture from sources such as coal, natural gas, and refining.

TCM MD Tore Amundsen explains that the two technology vendors have contributed financially to the test centre, and although the majority of the financing is coming from the State, the operating participants will fund the operating expenses. The technology vendors will be ‘in the drivers seat’ for the first 14 months during the initial test phase, and will manage the test programme.

Aker was said to have contributed NOK85-million (about $12,8-million) to the project, with Alstom having contributed a similar amount.

It will be the first project treating flue gas from a gas fired power plant. The ambition is to test, verify, and demonstrate CO2 capture technology owned and marketed by vendors. TCM is also ensuring that the infrastructure is in place on site for a third vendor to test its capture technology should this become an option.

Aker Clean Carbon is providing the technology, project management and carry through commissioning and initial operation of the plant, while Aker Solutions are providing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services to build the plant.

Engineering is under way and Aker Solutions will deliver a mechanically complete test plant for capturing CO2 at Mongstad in 2011. Aker Solutions is providing engineering and procurement services for the project from its Solent office in the UK. Pipe racks and several packages of process equipment will be built and assembled in Norway. The installation work at Mongstad will be carried out during 2010.

With Aker Clean Carbon’s technology for carbon capture, the basis of the process is the chemical reaction between a liquid absorbent, normally an amine, and CO2. In the capture plant, the exhaust containing CO2 is routed through inlet coolers to a large absorption tower. The gas enters at the bottom of the absorber and makes contact with the liquid amine, which flows downwards. The amine will absorb most of the CO2 by a chemical reaction. The remaining flue gas is treated in the water wash unit, to ensure removal of all amines before disposal to air from the top of the absorber.

The amine containing CO2 is pumped through heat exchangers to the stripper part where CO2 is “stripped” off (or boiled off) by heat from the re-boiler. After the stripping process the amine is pumped back to the absorber through an energy converter, and the cycle is repeated.

Norwegian pro-CCS nongovernmental organization Zero, explains that Aker’s amine technology is considered to have a moderate technical risk, since it has been used in similar applications for decades, at Sleipner and Snøvit for example. However, there is still a potential for improvements, and a need to qualify certain components of the process for a scale of at least one-million ton of CO2 yearly. Improvements to be evaluated at TCM include process design, construction methods and cost efficiency.

Alstom, meanwhile, explains that its CO2 capture system has the following main subsystems:
- Flue gas cooling, where flue gas from the boiler is cooled to condensed water and residual emissions that improves CO2 absorption and reduces the volume of gas to be treated and the size of the downstream equipment.
- CO2 absorption, whereby conditioned gas passes through a column that absorbes CO2 from the flue gas through contact with an ammonium-carbonate solution to form ammonium bicarbonate solids in solution. The treated flue gas then passes through additional columns to recover ammonia vapour and to heat the gas prior to venting a clean flue gas to the stack.
- High-pressure regeneration, where the “CO2-rich” ammonium bicarbonate solution is pressurised and pumped to a regenerator column where heat is applied to separate clean CO2 from the solution. The CO2 is further compressed and treated to produce “clean” CO2 at the desired customer specifications to facilitate transport or storage. The “CO2-lean” ammonium carbonate solution leaves the bottom of the regenerator column and is returned to the CO2 absorber.

Zero says that the chilled ammonia technology has a potential for lower energy consumption per ton of CO2 captured. However, this process has not been previously tested at such a large scale, and thus represents a higher technical risk.

Planning of TCM started in 2006, and in 2007, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy signed an agreement on cooperation with industrial participants in the planning and preparation of TCM, while the Norwegian State’s interests in the agreement were transferred in October 2007 to the State enterprise Gassnova.

In May 2009 the Norwegian Parliament authorised the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy to invest in TCM. Based on this, Statoil, Shell and the State (through Gassnova) decided to establish a technology company and begin with construction of TCM.

In May 2010, Sasol joined the partnership, and Gassnova commented that it was “very pleased that this agreement has now fallen into place,” because one of the main intentions of TCM is the involvement of large, international companies that see the need to reduce their own emissions and thus are genuinely interested in the development of CCS technology.

While the progress of the technology centre is proceeding as planned, the Norwegian government recently announced that the “current prediction implies that the government will present a proposition for investment decision on full scale CCS at Mongstad to the Parliament in 2014″.

This delay has caused controversy in Norway, as it means that it will be a different Cabinet that will have to make the investment decision, and it is not certain whether the new leaders will be as supportive of CCS as the current administration.

NGOs in Norway have voiced concern as they initially accepted the CHP power project with the understanding that its emissions would be captured and stored before 2014. Emissions from the CHP plant would significantly increase Norway’s emissions profile, as the country currently relies on emission-free hydro-power for its electricity.

CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS & GLOBAL BUY-IN

Amundsen explains that the construction at TCM is now just over 35% complete. The project is said to be on track to start capturing CO2 at the end of 2011 or start of 2012, and operate for a five-year test period.

At first, the centre will purely test the capture technology, which means that the CO2 will be vented, and not transported for storage underground.

“We initially looked at storing the CO2, but for a maximum 100 000t/y of CO2 that will be captured it is too costly to store,” notes Amundsen.

Should the investment decision for full-scale CCS at Mongstad be favourable, it is envisaged that a full-scale capture plant will be established, and transport pipelines constructed to a storage location.

TCM construction project manager Sverre Overå tells Engineering News that the construction site is 60 000m2, and almost $300-million has been spent on the construction phase to date, with 1,2-million accident-free man hours having been worked. One thousand people are directly involved with the construction, and a large amount of steel fabrication is being done off-site.

At the start of May, site preparation was complete, concrete works were 55% complete, construction of the administration complex was 75% complete, construction of the amine plant, which has a 60m high tower, was 27% complete, and construction of the chilled ammonia plant was 18% complete.

CCS has largely been supported in Norway, which is viewed as one of the most ambitious countries at the global climate change negotiations. The country has set targets to decrease greenhouse-gas emissions by 9% below 1990 levels by 2020, and has stated its intention to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Showing even more ambition, Norway has stated that, if other countries showed ambition in cutting their emissions, and came to a comprehensive global agreement, Norway would push for carbon neutrality by 2030. CCS would likely play a large role in reaching that goal.

However, for the technology to contribute to CO2 abatement to the level envisaged by the IEA, it would need to be supported and deployed globally. While NGOs in Norway, where storage takes place offshore, have supported the technology, many civil society groups are wary of the technology, particularly in Germany and Holland, where it has been proposed to store the CO2 underground onshore.

While companies that produce or use coal in South Africa are aware or CCS and are investigating it, the South African Centre for CCS sees the need to educate and inform South Africans about CCS, particularly as it has been put forward as a vital part of South Africa’s climate change response.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter

Posted on June 18, 2010 · in Global

Tagged as: Carbon Dioxide • Carbon Neutral • carbon pricing