ECN hosts Roundtable on readiness for carbon dioxide capture and storage

On October 22^nd, ECN hosted a Roundtable on readiness of new installations for CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) in Amsterdam. The Roundtable is part of a project, funded by the Global CCS Institute and led by ICF International in the United States, that aims to develop a definition and best practices for CCS-readiness. About 25 experts from European governments, universities, environmental organisations and industry attended the Roundtable and engaged in lively discussions on whether policy for CCS-readiness would be a good idea, and what best practices should look like. 

Although efforts to mature CO₂ capture, transport and storage technology are underway, coal-fired power plants and other installations are currently being planned, in Europe and all over the rest of the world. These plants will be emitting large quantities of CO₂ for decades to come, although to prevent further climate change, greenhouse emissions need to decrease in the coming years.

Currently, the large majority of new installations are not planned to be equipped with capture or storage provisions, which would jeopardise the feasibility of the emission reductions needed to prevent climate change. New plants, however, could be designed in such a way that they allow for capture, transport and storage of CO₂ in ten or fifteen years, when CCS technology is likely to be commercially available and more stringent climate policy would require CCS.

One of the points debated at the Roundtable was, that if CCS-readiness would not be followed up by strict climate policy, it could lead to the delay of the application of CCS and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, CCS-readiness has an array of technical and economic challenges that need to be overcome. Some experts argue that the industrialised countries should focus on demonstrating real CCS, while developing countries should focus on making their new CO₂ sources ready for capture and storage.

The Roundtable organised by ECN in Amsterdam is part of a series organised by the Global CCS Institute and ICF International. On October 19th, a Roundtable was held in Washington DC, and on October 25th in Beijing. The final report of the project is expected to be available in December 2009. In this project, ECN Policy Studies and ECN CO₂ Capture Technology departments collaborate to cover both the technical and policy-related aspects of CCS-readiness.

More information: Heleen de Coninck, Ruud van den Brink
More information on the Global CCS Institute: www.globalccsinstitute.com

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