*EPF310 12/15/2004
International Forum Tackles CO2 Emissions from Power Plants
(Technology could eliminate one third of total carbon dioxide emissions) (1180)

By Cheryl Pellerin
Washington File Staff Writer

(This article is the third in a four-part series on carbon sequestration.)

Washington -- The United States is leading 16 countries in an international effort to make the capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions commercially competitive and safe, seeking to control greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and ultimately slow global warming.

This is the third article in a four-part series about a voluntary international effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and to improve the technology that makes carbon dioxide capture and storage possible.

The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) is a collaboration among the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the European Commission, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Norway, the Russian Federation, South Africa and the United Kingdom to develop improved, cost-effective technologies for CO2 capture and long-term storage.

CO2 sequestration is two technologies -- CO2 capture and storage. In CO2 capture, carbon dioxide is collected from gaseous -- anthropogenic, or human-made -- emissions arising from fossil-fueled power plants. Emissions are captured, the CO2 is stripped out by chemical methods, and the CO2 can be reused.

In CO2 storage, the captured gases are injected into geologic formations like sandstone or limestone aquifers and old oil and gas fields and they remain for centuries or longer, but geologists are still investigating what happens to the gas once it is underground.

CO2 sequestration efforts combine carbon capture and storage by injecting anthropogenic CO2 streams underground.

INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT

The CSLF has proved to be an effective mechanism for international engagement. "Since the CSLF launch," says S. Julio Friedmann, who heads the Carbon Storage Initiative at the DOE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, "many members of the international community have truly engaged -- particularly Australia, Japan, Norway, the European Union and the United Kingdom, which have been very aggressive about their participation."

The forum has prompted many nations to take explicit action with regard to carbon sequestration, he adds.

An example is the $25 million CO2SINK project in Potsdam, Germany, funded by Germany and the European Union. Its goal is to test and evaluate CO2 capture and storage to better understand the science and processes involved and to gain experience for developing safety guidelines for people and the environment.

The project will obtain CO2 from a biomass (plants, wood chips and other organic material) gasification facility, then store CO2 in a deep saline aquifer.

Geologically speaking, aquifers are formations of sandstone, limestone and other porous rock deep in the earth. Such rock has many pores and the pores contain salty (saline) water, also called brine. The rock is permeable, which means water can be taken out and CO2 and other gases can be injected.

The CO2SINK project adds an interesting technical wrinkle, Friedmann says.

"Plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere," he explains. "If you use the biomass for energy production and capture those emissions, you have what's called a negative-emissions power plant. Over time, the power plant actually pulls carbon dioxide out of the air through the plants."

Australia went even further. "Australia has done two things as part of its CSLF commitment," Friedmann says. "They decided to very aggressively take on the regulatory and legal questions associated with CO2 storage. They volunteered and have been very good about pulling together information for other countries to use." Questions include possible environmental and health impacts and the types of regulatory regimens needed to monitor those issues.

The Australian Parliament also approved $500 million (Australian) dollars for large-scale demonstration projects of any low- or zero-emissions technology proposed by companies or organizations, but the projects have to be big.

"An individual project can get $20 million dollars," Friedmann says, "but it requires $40 million in matching funds. It seems likely that a number of these are going to be carbon storage projects."

TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION

"We're probably 10 years away from achieving the actual application of these technologies," says Justin R. "Judd" Swift, deputy assistant secretary for international affairs for fossil energy at the Department of Energy (DOE), "so we are pursuing the science through a technology road map."

The CSLF technology road map identifies research and development pathways that lead to commercially viable carbon capture and sequestration systems.

The decade-long projected timeframe stems from technical questions about CO2 capture and storage and policy issues.

"We're better at capturing carbon dioxide because we've been doing it longer," says Friedmann, "but capture is very expensive so at this point the research is all in cost reduction -- how you go from $40 a ton to $5 a ton. If we could capture CO2 at $5 a ton, people would be doing this everywhere."

This high cost makes CO2 sequestration comparable in cost to other kinds of technologies, such as large-scale efficiency improvements in wind-power research, but it is cheaper than nuclear and solar power, he says.

"With carbon dioxide storage, it's all about uncertainty," he adds. Engineers know that injected CO2 will stay in the ground, for example, but they don't know the gas's long-term fate -- whether it will dissolve in the liquid or whether it will form minerals, permanently binding the CO2 underground.

"If somebody were to ask what's actually going to happen to the CO2, that's a harder question," he says.

Many experts believe that it will take 10 years to significantly reduce the cost of CO2 capture and for policymakers to embrace carbon sequestration technology -- specifically, Friedmann suggests, the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act of 2003.

The legislation, S139 -- co-sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican -- seeks to establish a market-driven system of greenhouse gas tradable allowances. In so doing, the authors aim to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on foreign oil and ensure benefits to consumers.

"People believe that, from a policy perspective, something like a [Lieberman-McCain] cap-and-trade system in our country is five or 10 years away," Friedmann says. "So if you have a significant reduction in cost over those 10 years and if you have a policy framework and a regulatory framework that make sense, at that point you're ready for commercialization."

Typically, industries do not like cap-and-trade systems on one level because they don't want to have to deal with the regulations, he adds. "But they prefer a cap-and-trade system to something like a tax."

Lawmakers must resolve this and other regulatory issues in the years to come.

This is the third article in a four-part series about the international U.S. Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum.

Part 2 is available at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=December&x=20041214085757lcnirellep0.3161585&t=gi/gi-latest.html

Part 1 is available at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=December&x=20041213122136lcnirellep0.6637842&t=gi/gi-latest.html

Information about the CSLF is available at http://www.cslforum.org/

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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