CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE: MAKING IT HAPPEN (Roundtable debate. Bibliothèque Solvay. Brussels, 27 May 2008)

This report presents the outcomes of Friends of Europe's roundtable debate "Carbon Capture and Storage: Making it happen", held on Tuesday 27 May 2008. The roundtable discussed the role of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in preventing climate change and the crucial issue of who would have to pay for it industry, the EU or member states.

CCS involves reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel power plants and other heavily emitting installations such as steelworks and cement factories. The process consists of three stages - capturing the carbon; transporting it by pipeline or ship; and storing it in suitable geological formations. Although there are no full-size CCS plants in operation, all the necessary technology is already in use for other purposes - it has just not been put together to create CCS.

While there are challenges in transporting and storing CO2, they are relatively straightforward. Capture is the most complex and expensive stage, accounting for about 80% of the cost of CCS. There are three options: - Pre-combustion capture converts the fossil fuel (the technology can be used for coal, oil or gas, and indeed for biofuels) into a mixture of hydrogen and CO2 and then separates the CO2, leaving the hydrogen to be used as a clean CO2-free fuel. - Oxyfuel capture burns the fossil fuel in pure oxygen rather than air. This raises the combustion temperature and produces CO2 and steam. The CO2 can be trapped by condensing the steam. - Post-combustion capture removes CO2 from the exhaust gases using solvents.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs set out the case for CCS and explained why industry should retain some of the risks of development. He added that he was interested to hear industry's views on how to proceed. CCS was not an energy priority, but a climate change issue, he pointed out.

<B>TABLE OF CONTENTS</B>

Introduction

Keynote address

CCS and climate change

Who pays?

Conclusion

List of discussants

List of observers