Refinery, steel, ammonia or cement plant

Source:	refinery, steel, ammonia or cement plant
CO2 capture:	petrochemical
Transport:	pipeline
Store:	saline aquifer or depleted gas field
Location of store:	offshore or onshore

Apart from the industrial installation itself and the capture process, this option is the same as the Post-combustion coal fired power plant

Capture

Refineries produce the transportation fuels that account for a large and growing share of the world’s energy-related CO₂ emissions, but they are also large CO₂ emitters because they use so much heat and electrical energy which is generated on site, and because the refining processes they use sometimes produce CO₂.

The main difference between CO₂ capture at a refinery and at a power plant is that the CO₂ emissions are more dispersed in a refinery: they would likely have to be captured from several points.

CO₂ is also produced in the manufacture of ammonia, alcohol, and synthetic liquid fuels. In all these processes, if the CO₂ captured is not sold or used for another process, it is released straight to the atmosphere (known as ‘venting’). In some of the processes a richer or even relatively pure CO₂ stream is emitted to the atmosphere, meaning that capture of the CO₂ is more cost-effective.

CO₂ is emitted from smelters and cement plants, mainly because fossil fuel is burnt to produce heat and steam, but also because some of the chemical processes involved produce CO₂. In these cases, the technology options for capturing CO₂ are essentially the same as they are for power plants that burn fossil fuels.

CO₂ transport

After capture, CO₂ must be transported to suitable storage sites.

Pumping carbon dioxide though pipelines is the cheapest form of transport, and it is a well known and reliable technology.

However, with the increased number and carrying capacity of pipelines that a large-scale CCS industry would require, there will need to be further studies of pipeline safety, particularly in heavily populated areas, or areas of high seismicity where earthquakes may cause damage to the pipes.

If leakage occurred from a pipeline in open, windy areas of country, there are unlikely to be dangers to people, livestock or crops or to the ecosystem because the escaping CO₂ would mix with the surrounding air and would probably disperse rapidly.

However, in localised low-lying areas where there is little wind, leakage could be a problem. This is because CO₂ is heavier than air and tends to accumulate in such places.

Similarly in buildings which have basements or underground rooms, CO₂ levels may have to be monitored during periods of known leakage - though again the advanced state of pipeline technology is such that CO₂ leakage is thought very unlikely.

Storage

Once it reaches the proposed storage site, the compressed CO₂ is pumped down a well into the deep underground reservoir where it will be permanently stored.

Physical, impermeable caprock for example, and chemical trapping mechanisms prevent the CO₂ from escaping to the surface.

Depleted oil or gas fields are attractive for geological storage of carbon dioxide because we know that they held oil and/or natural gas for, in many cases, millions of years. Moreover, the geological character of these reservoirs is well known from years of study during extraction of oil and gas.

The main disadvantage of using depleted oil fields is their geographic distribution which may not be ideal in relation to point sources (like power stations) and their limited capacity in comparison with the size of big point sources.

Saline aquifers are deep rock formations that are very similar to those that contain oil or gas except that they contain highly concentrated brine in the rock pores instead of oil or gas. When carbon dioxide is pumped into them, the highly saline water that they contain is pushed out and replaced by carbon dioxide. Their main advantage for CCS is their large potential storage volume and their commonness. For example much of the North Sea, mainland Europe and the Texas Gulf Coast is underlain by large saline aquifers.

Their main disadvantage is that relatively little is known about them, compared to oil or gas fields. Therefore a lot of work is required to prove that they will retain carbon dioxide permanently before it is pumped into them. Unlike storage in oil fields or coal beds no useful by-product will offset the cost of storage.

This process of injection of CO₂ into rock is already understood and has been carried out for many years in the process of ‘Enhanced Oil Recovery’ or EOR. In EOR, carbon dioxide is injected into an oilfield to produce the remaining oil and gas that cannot be recovered by other means. Carbon dioxide is a very good solvent for oil and makes it flow more easily through the reservoir rock towards the oil production wells.

EOR is attractive for geological storage because the geological character of hydrocarbon reservoirs is well known, and because costs of injection may be partly offset by the sale of additional oil that is recovered.

However in the saline aquifer CO₂ storage option there is no economic advantage in injecting CO₂ because the object is not to improve oil recovery but simply to dispose of CO₂. Thus there is no direct financial incentive to carry out injection, only a moral or climate abatement imperative. This means that CCS can be expensive in this option (see below).

Safety of storage

The most important public concern about CCS is whether stored CO₂ will leak back to the surface (on land or at sea) and into the atmosphere. This would be a hazard because CO₂ is an asphyxiant but it would also mean that the process would not be reducing CO₂ emissions.

However, for well-selected, designed and managed geological storage sites, the IPCC estimates that risks are low. CO₂ could be trapped for millions of years, and well selected stores are likely to retain over 99 per cent of the injected CO₂ over 1000 years.

There are examples of successful storage at demonstration sites. For example, Norway's Sleipner gas field is the oldest store of CO₂ in Europe. Environmental assessment of the gas field has concluded that storage is successful. At another demonstration site at Weyburn in Canada, the likelihood of stored CO₂ release has been determined to be less than one percent in 5000 years.

There are places in the world like Italy and Germany where carbon dioxide is naturally coming to the surface because of deep volcanic activity. Effects of leakage are very localised and can be managed successfully and safely in urban areas.

Regulation

Presently CCS is licensed and controlled mainly under petroleum legislation but soon there will be specialised legislation for CCS in Europe through an EC Directive. The Directive states that leakage and potential long-term care of storage sites must be addressed before CCS can be developed to its full potential.

Cost

There are few published studies of the costs of refinery, steel, ammonia or cement plant capture.

One study has shown that post-combustion CO₂ capture for a large refinery is technically feasible, but put the cost of capture would be $50–60 per tonne of CO₂ captured. This is considered expensive due to the high output of some refineries which suggest total capture costs of up to $100 million per year.

These costs would inevitably be transferred to customers, including industry, and eventually the consumer.

• Carbon capture and storage (CCS) research
• Advanced seismic techniques
• CO₂ storage Sleipner
• Clean coal exploitation and unconventional gas

• BBC CCS Interview
  Dr Mike Stephenson (BGS)

• Ireland Study Report
• SACS Best Practice Manual
• Sequestration: the underground storage of carbon dioxide
• CO₂ storage capacity estimation: methodology and gaps
• IPCC special report
• Southern North Sea case study
• East Irish Sea case study