Geo-energy | PSS-CCS

• Context
• Objectives
• Realization
• Funding
• Staff
• Duration
• Link
• References

Context

Global warming refers to the rise of temperatures on Earth during the past 150 years. Direct cause is human activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Large amounts of CO₂ are emitted, especially in the Western world, due to the extensive use of fossil fuels. Developing regions such as China and India will worldwide lead to an even grow­ing need for energy, while currently already about one third of the CO₂ in the atmosphere is of anthropogenic origin.

Natural gas, oil and coal are fundamental to our current so­ciety, and drastically reducing the emissions of CO₂ there­fore requires very significant measures. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technique that can be used for in­dustrial sources of CO₂. CCS involves the capturing and subsequent storage of CO₂ in geological reservoirs.

CO₂ will be captured at industrial plants and transported mainly by pipelines. Several geological storage options are possible and available worldwide:

• depleted oil or gas fields,
• active oil or gas fields where CO₂ is used to enhance oil or gas production (EOR/EGR),
• unmined coal layers where CO₂ is used to set free methane that can be produced,
• and storage in deep saline aquifers.

Potential reservoirs are located on- and offshore.

Objectives

The mitigation potential of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is very important. The central question of the current project is whether this potential can and will be realised. In­deed, CCS involves important and fundamental infrastruc­tural changes for existing and future energy intensive indus­try. Factors of different nature will be decisive for the future of CCS.

The central goal of the project PSS-CCS (Policy Support System for Carbon Capture and Storage) is the develop­ment of an economic-environmental simulator that will at­tempt realistic predictions regarding the impact and growth of CCS between 2010 and 2050. The simulator will be devel­oped and its applicability demonstrated.

A number of satellite targets have been defined that need to be realised in order to reach the main goal, which is the de­velopment of the PSS-CCS simulator. These secondary tar­gets are:

• inventorying the geological storage potential in Flanders and the Walloon Region;
• the setting up of a meth­odology for risk evaluation of geological sites;
• inventorying the current and expected sources of CO₂ in Belgium;
• the development of an ad-hoc routing application for pipeline trajectories and networks of pipelines;
• and inventorying the technologies that are related to the capture and compres­sion of CO₂.

Realization

Economic-environmental simulations require expertise from different disciplines. It is indeed important to fully master all aspects of the simulated technology. It is only when the ba­sic data for the simulation is realistic and the influence of all parameters on costs and profits are properly understood, that realistic predictions can be made.

Running simulations therefore strongly depends on the thor­ough evaluation of the techniques and possibilities to cap­ture and compress CO₂ in order to transport and store it. The results of these studies will be summarized in a relational database that will serve as the scenario input for the simula­tor.

The PSS simulator uses repeated calculations with each time slightly different parameters to project the most probable future. Here, the CO₂ that is not emitted by using CCS technology was calculated for the 2010-2050 period. Around 2025, CCS might become commercial, and the most probable future is indicated in red. These are preliminary results, so no exact values are given.

The simulator is being built from scratch. During this process the principles of economy have been confronted with tech­nological insights. This confrontation has lead to a calcula­tion and decision scheme that pays specific attention to these points in which CCS distinguishes itself from other mitigation techniques.

Spatial aspects are for example important. On one hand, the location of a coal fired power plant, a major source of CO₂, will depend on the supply routes of coal. On the other hand, the location of the geological reservoir cannot be chosen freely as this depends on the configuration of the geological subsurface. Any mismatch between the location of source and reservoir requires the transport of CO₂ by pipeline. The larger the distance, the larger this additional cost.

Also and with time a network of pipelines can emerge that connects several sources and reservoirs, at least when CCS will be­come a major activity. Also the growth of such a network of pipelines will get specific attention within the current project. Introducing these aspects in the simulator requires a GIS environment (Geographic Information System), which forms an important part of the simulator.

A second aspect typical of CCS is the exploration risk of the geologic reservoir. Briefly state this risk means that as long as the reservoir has not been fully explored and tested, the possibility remains that the reservoir will not be suited for storing CO₂. Therefore, although the most important cost factor in the CCS chain is the capturing of CO₂ at the source, the success of the com­plete project will depend on the re­sults of the exploration of the geo­logical reservoir. How to cope with this risk in a practical situation, and how to integrate it in economic simu­lations, is also a point of focus within the project PSS-CCS.

First results have indicated that the international context will play an important role for CCS in Belgium. Within the PSS-CCS BeNe project, cooperation with The Netherlands will be established, since e.g. Rotterdam has a clear ambition of becoming one of the first international CO₂ hubs. Data exchange and potential participation within the Dutch CATO2 project are key factors here.

Funding

BELSPO

Staff

• Kris Piessens (coordinator)
• Kris Welkenhuysen
• Michiel Dusar
• Veerle Vandeginste
• Michaela Chronopoulou

External: VITO, ULg, FPMs, Ecofys (subcontractor)

Duration of the project

• Phase I: 15/12/2005 – 15/06/2008
• Phase II: 01/01/2009 – 31/01/2011
• BeNe: 15/12/2008 – 31/01/2011

Link

See also www.PSS-CCS.be for more information. (This link will open in a new window.)