Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Germany leads 'clean coal' pilot

oi yoi | 04.09.2008 11:34

Beneath the gargantuan grey boiler towers of Schwarze Pumpe power station which pierce the skies of northern Germany, a Lilliputian puzzle of metal boxes and shining canisters is about to mark a moment of industrial history.

This mini power plant is a pilot project for carbon capture and storage (CCS) - the first coal-fired plant in the world ready to capture and store its own CO2 emissions.

Next week the pilot - an oxyfuel boiler - will be formally commissioned.

A cloud of pure oxygen will be breathed into the boiler. The flame will be lit. Then a cloud of powdered lignite will be injected.

The outcome will be heat, water vapour, impurities, nine tonnes of CO2 an hour¿ and a landmark in clean technology.

Because the CO2 will then be separated, squashed to one 500th of its original volume and squeezed into a cylinder ready to be transported to a gas field and forced 1,000m below the surface into porous rock where it should stay until long after mankind has stopped worrying about climate change.

This is the technology once lavishly described by the former UK Chief Scientist Sir David King as "the only hope for mankind".

The plant operators, Vattenfall, have worked furiously for two years to get the pilot running.

"We are very proud - we think this is the future for coal," says Vattenfall's Hubertus Altmann.

They funded the 70m-euro project themselves because they wanted to lead a technology they believe solves the conundrum of providing energy security through plentiful coal supplies whilst avoiding the CO2 emissions officially blamed for climate change.

Green-carpeted marquees are currently being furnished for the guests who will swell the applause at the grand inauguration.

But big questions hang over this technology overall, particularly over where the CO2 will be stored and who will pay the high costs of building and running the CCS plants.

The EU wants to see 10-12 full-scale power plants demonstrating CO2 capture within the next few years.

But although a number of other firms will soon join the race with pilot projects, no full-scale CCS coal plant has yet been commissioned.

The British government has promised a decision in October on how it will fund a full-scale CCS in the UK.

It hopes to avoid landing the taxpayer with the bill, but questions over CCS funding in Europe are as yet unresolved by the European Commission and the European Parliament.

The main options are:

* New rules mandating that all coal power plants must be fitted with CCS - ie industry and the consumer will pay
* Direct funding from the EU or member states (but member states do not want to pay)
* A feed-in tariff so generators get a premium for the amount of CO2 they sequester. Monitoring may be difficult
* Creating a new fund within the EU's Emission Trading Scheme (EUETS), which would give firms valuable carbon credits for every stored tonne of CO2. This would cost nothing but might undermine the CO2 market
* Setting a CO2 emission limit for all new power stations of, say, 350g of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity. This would make it impossible to build a coal plant which did not capture at least some of its CO2. This option is being pushed hard by UK Conservatives

Taking cash from EUETS auctioning. The permits for big firms to emit CO2 will be auctioned from 2013 (at the moment, they are given away). This will raise many billions - some of which could be diverted to fund CCS projects.
Schwarze Pumpe CCS power plant (BBC)
Can the Schwarze Pumpe effort be scaled up economically?

All the options would benefit from the sort of certainty over future carbon prices that would be provided by the successor to the Kyoto Protocol - but that is facing severe difficulties. And, meanwhile, industry is crying out for politicians to make an early decision so it can invest the billions that are needed.

"We need CSS urgently because the world is building a whole new generation of coal power plants and unless we find out whether this technology operates at scale and we can make these plants zero-carbon in the future, those will be a liability," says Nick Mabey of the think-tank e3g.

"The UK has talked a good game on this, it has said it wants to build a demonstration, but it's yet to show where the money is going to come from for the plants it wants built in Europe and worldwide."

Part of the problem is that the exact cost of large-scale CCS is unknown. This has left green groups uncertain and divided on the topic.

The latest estimates suggest CCS power will cost roughly the same as wind power - maybe 50% more than it does at the moment.
Coal train (BBC)
Coal supplies are plentiful; the issue is CO2 emissions

The firms providing the technology are doing their best to re-assure national treasuries that they can do it at a price which leaves coal competitive.

Philippe Joubert, of Alstom, who built the oxyfuel boiler at Schwarze Pumpe, said: "We will have a very good indication one or two years from now where we will have the first result of the bigger size demonstration plant.

"Currently we are at 5 MW; it's not enough to set a price. In our business, the size is a real issue, and if you start to have a real market, probably the price will drop."

The real test of CCS, though, is not in Europe.

The global CO2 savings many scientists believe are needed to control global warming are only likely to happen if politicians in rich nations are ready to ignore high energy prices, put up the price of their cheapest fuel through CCS - and then help developing countries to do the same.

oi yoi

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Bad reporting of the issue! — Makhno
  2. Certainly is bad reporting — kriptick
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech