An Assessment of the Commercial Availability of Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Technologies as of June 2009

Abstract

Currently, there is considerable confusion within parts of the carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technical and regulatory communities regarding the maturity and commercial readiness of the technologies needed to capture, transport, inject, monitor and verify the efficacy of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in deep, geologic formations. The purpose of this technical report is to address this confusion by discussing the state of CCS technological readiness in terms of existing commercial deployments of CO2 capture systems, CO2 transportation pipelines, CO2 injection systems and measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) systems for CO2 injected into deep geologic structures. To date, CO2 has been captured from both natural gas and coal fired commercial power generating facilities, gasification facilities and other industrial processes. Transportation via pipelines and injection of CO2 into the deep subsurface are well established commercial practices with more than 35 years of industrial experience. There are also a wide variety of MMV technologies that have been employed to understand the fate of CO2 injected into the deep subsurface. The four existing end-to-end commercial CCS projects – Sleipner, Snohvit, In Salah and Weyburn – are using a broad range of these technologies, and prove that, at a high level, geologic CO2 storage technologies are mature and capable of deploying at commercial scales. Whether wide scale deployment of CCS is currently or will soon be a cost-effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is largely a function of climate policies which have yet to be enacted and the public’s willingness to incur costs to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the Earth’s climate. There are significant benefits to be had by continuing to improve through research, development, and demonstration suite of existing CCS technologies. Nonetheless, it is clear that most of the core technologies required to address capture, transport, injection, monitoring, management and verification for most large CO2 source types and in most CO2 storage formation types, exist.