The ETI has announced a Request for Proposals for a major project to developed ‘Next Generation’ capture technologies, specifically focussed around phase separation for pre-combustion capture, with ETI funding of the order of £25M.Further information can be found on our news page.
Right now, fossil fuels remain a key ingredient in meeting the UK’s energy demands, so the development and implementation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies is vitally important. A Strategy Advisory Group (SAG) commissioned by the ETI to investigate Carbon Capture and Storage identified that widespread deployment of CCS could potentially mitigate CO2 emissions more than any other single energy technology, including nuclear and renewables.
The ETI is working with other UK agencies to ensure that investment and innovation is dedicated appropriately to CCS technologies, to demonstrate that these can be deployed on a commercial scale. To maximise emission reductions from the UK’s current 40 GW of fossil-fuel generation, we will need to develop lower cost capture technologies with a smaller performance impact. We also need to ensure that sufficient high-integrity storage sites are available in the UK and understand how an integrated electricity grid and CO2 transport network will operate. The ETI expects to address all these aspects of CCS.
Over the next 12 months, the ETI aims to create a focused portfolio of CCS research, development and demonstration projects, which will leverage the unique capabilities of its Industry Members to support large-scale rollout of CCS in the UK.
The experience of our Industry Members will be of immense benefit to the CCS projects we support. One example is BP, who are behind one of the few CCS projects actually working in the world today. The BP-operated In Salah gas field in Algeria is already seeing one million tonnes of CO2 reinjected into a deep geological formation below the Sahara desert, thereby avoiding release into the atmosphere. It is the ETI’s access to this type of world-class experience that we expect will help us to make an exceptional contribution in CCS.
UK Storage Appraisal Project
An ambitious project which could see the UK as the first country with a comprehensive assessment of national CO2 storage capacity has been announced by the ETI.
The project will carry out a review of potential sites suitable for storing CO2 offshore and help to answer the question of how much storage is practically available in the UK.
Current Status: The Request for Proposals for ‘Development of Next Generation Technology for Carbon Capture through Physical Separation’ closed on 25 June 2010.