October 8, 2010

Technology Collaboration Critical Step Towards Commercial Deployment

Warsaw, Poland--The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum today added five new carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects to its existing R&D portfolio in an effort to bring together developed and developing nations in a collaborative quest to curtail manmade emissions of the greenhouse gas CO₂.

The addition of today’s projects brings the total number of CSLF recognized projects to 34 and provides the basis for international information sharing on some of the most important projects throughout the world covering all aspects of CCS. All are aimed at gathering the knowledge and experience required to initiate widespread carbon capture and to conduct safe, secure geologic storage on the order of thousands of years. Ten of the CSLF recognized projects have been completed.

Currently the CSLF portfolio includes pioneering activities to identify potential storage capacities and projects dedicated to matters such as cutting the costs of CO₂ capture technology and developing new methods of combustion; identifying storage capacity and widening the understanding of geologic reservoirs; predicting the behavior of stored carbon in various kinds of reservoirs; and developing technologies for successful, reliable and long-term monitoring, measurement and verification of stored carbon.

Most projects serve several purposes and a number capitalize on the concept of using CO₂ storage to augment energy production as with enhanced oil recovery and methane recovery from unmineable coal seams.

The projects in the portfolio report progress regularly to the CSLF and results are available to all members, stakeholders and others through the CSLF website. In return the projects receive global visibility.

The five new projects include:

• CCS Bełchatów Project - Bełchatów, Poland
  Demonstrate commercial-scale CO₂ capture, transport and storage at a utility power plant
• CO2 Field Lab Project – Svelvik, Norway
  Determine CO₂. migration characteristics for a permeable geologic formation
• Gorgon CO2 Injection Project - Barrow Island, WA, Australia
  Demonstrate commercial-scale CO₂ capture, transport and storage from a commercial natural gas field
• Quest CCS Project - Fort Saskatchewan, AB, Canada 
  Demonstrate commercialscale CO₂ capture, transport and storage from an oil sands processing facility
• SECARB Early Test at Cranfield Project - Cranfield, MS, United States
  Demonstrate commercial-scale CO₂ transport and storage in a deep saline reservoir.

The CSLF is a voluntary climate initiative of developed and developing nations that account for 75 percent of all manmade carbon dioxide emissions. The members engage in cooperative technology development aimed at enabling the early reduction and steady elimination of CO2 emissions.

Forum membership spans the world's largest blocs of economic activity, including the North America Free Trade Area, the European Union and the leading economies of Asia. Members are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, the European Commission, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Korea, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.