At the time of writing, we are still unsure of the budgets for year 2-5 of the CATO-2 program. We had hoped to complete the negotiations regarding government funding by the end of 2009. I trust, however, that a decision regarding the government budgets will be taken shortly and that execution of the CATO-2 program can be continued at full speed in year 2-5.

The climate summit in Copenhagen was intended to be the "grand finale" of 2009. Also for CATO-2 the summit in Copenhagen was seen as a highly relevant event. To this end a special brochure was prepared about CATO-2 and CATO-2 activities, to be presented at the summit's side events. But in the first week of the summit it became clear that the local organizing committee was facing serious logistic challenges. This finally resulted in the inability to actually access the conference premises and in the cancellation of a number of side events, including those that involved CATO-2.

Jan Brouwer, CATO-2 program director  

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CATO Advisory Board member John Gale is chairman of the Advisory Board since 2009. At the occasion of the annual CATO New Year's meeting he was asked to give some of his views on CCS and the CATO programme. 

CATO Advisory Board member John Gale is chairman since 2009. He is also general manager with the International Energy Agency (IEA GHG) Greenhouse Gas R&D programme. He joined the IEA GHG programme team in 1999. His areas of technical responsibility at that time included geological storage of CO₂, non CO₂ greenhouse gases and greenhouse gas reduction in energy intensive industries. He already had a vast expertise in the field of advanced clean coal fired technology and worked on a variety of international clean coal and environmental projects.  He also managed IEA GHG communication and publicity activities.

‘Who's who' of Dutch scientists

CATO is a wonderful programme because it looks to the whole CCS chain and the whole integration of it. It's got the Who is who of Dutch scientists in one programme and they are all very credible scientists with good international reputations. That enhances the program and the Netherland's credibility on CCS throughout the world. This program is probably the forebear of the national programs in Europe.

Capture most expensive link

Of all the CATO themes Capture needs a lot of applied research. The capture component of the CCS chain is the most expensive and it absolutely needs to make reductions in costs. To do that we have to look at how best do you include new ideas and new technology and this fundamental piece of the programme we have here because actually and for the first time all three capture options that are on the table are being researched by one group.  This is absolutely a ‘pro' of the CATO-2 programme. The fact that the programme is doing some very good work on scale up (taking it from the laboratory to the pilot for actually full scale demonstration) is also very important and I think we have a good road map here for capture demonstration in the near future'

Why is storage in depleted hydrocarbon fields so important?
I think the way to look at it is this: these fields are very well researched and explored, we know them and we start injecting the fields we know most about; we have all the seismic information, we know how they have been handled, we know the geochemical effects when the gas has been taken out of them. We know that they are a safe depository and we can confidently inject into those reservoirs and demonstrate that to people and win their confidence. We then have a safe position to move from. Larger volumes could be stored in aquifers but we know less about them. We have to acquire knowledge about them to be able to make the same judgments whether they are as safe to inject into as the hydrocarbon fields.

... and demonstration?
Direct experience through demonstration is very valuable. In order to win the public's heart and mind, you have to build up a level of experience and comfort by means of small scale demonstration and pilot projects. People have to actually see that pipelines don't explode or vomit out obnoxious gases and that the technique is not damaging. You also have to try to be remote from big industries. The CATO-2 programme has scientist involved who are at a distance from those big industries. They take part in groups with technical specialists like TNO but they are also in the general public, talk to them, talk to their peers and to pressure groups so they are able to advise impartially.

And it's also possible we have to work harder: the information is there but we have to convince the public. We have to be transparent and that has to be based on real results.  

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The Copenhagen COP15 and CMP5 delivered an overall ‘Copenhagen Accord' and several ‘draft decisions' on specific issues. The Copenhagen Accord was proposed by some 30 countries and formulates some general intentions, like the 2°C limit to global warming and the financing of measures in developing countries (30 bn$ for 2010 till 2012, growing to 100 bn$ by 2020). CCS is not explicitly mentioned here. The Accord has no official UN status yet, because the proposal did not meet the obligatory ‘consensus'. Until consensus is met, the UN only ‘takes note of' the Copenhagen Accord!

The Accord wants to establish a Technology Mechanism, but does not give much guidance for the development and transfer of greenhouse gas technologies, such as CCS. Article 11 says:
"In order to enhance action on development and transfer of technology we decide to establish a Technology Mechanism to accelerate technology development and transfer in support of action on adaptation and mitigation that will be guided by a country-driven approach and be based on national circumstances and priorities."

Besides the Accord, many other specific issues were discussed during the two weeks in Copenhagen. The position of CCS as an eligible technology for the UN's Clean Development Mechanism was a prominent topic. At this moment, some CCS projects have already been submitted to the CDM Executive Board for approval, but CCS is not a part of the list of eligible technologies yet.
Copenhagen did not reach a decision. For a long time the draft decisions about CDM contained the addition of CCS to the list of technologies in CDM. A large majority of the 193 countries intended to support this, but especially Brazil and some other countries opposed. Again, a final decision had to be delayed because there was no consensus.

No decision can be expected before the COP16 discussion in Mexico City, at the end of 2010. "It seems like a very political discussion," says Stefan Bakker of ECN, who attended the discussions in the Danish capital. "Brazil is advocating forestry in CDM, so it seems they want to be compensated for any positive position about CCS. Now the final outcome is that the UN working groups still have to elaborate on the list of concerns to CCS."
According to the Draft decision -/CMP.5 (Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) these concerns are:

(a) Non-permanence, including long-term permanence;
(b) Measuring, reporting and verification;
(c) Environmental impacts;
(d) Project activity boundaries;
(e) International law;
(f) Liability;
(g) The potential for perverse outcomes;
(h) Safety;
(i) Insurance coverage and compensation for damages caused due to seepage or leakage.

Author: Rolf de Vos/Staccato Jan 2010

For more information see: http://unfccc.int/2860.php  

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On Thursday, January 21st, Nature published a "Letter to the Editor" by Heleen de Coninck (research international energy and climate policies of ECN and participant CATO-2 Work Package 2.3, International CCS Policy) on ill-advised CCS advocacy in the CCS academic expert community. The editor shortened the original text considerably.

Monday January 25th, 2010

Letter to the Editor of Nature

Kramer and Haigh, in their opinion piece on low-carbon energy (Kramer, G.J. & Haigh, M. (2009) Nature 462, 568-569), indicate CO2 capture and storage (CCS) as an important mitigation technology, and indicate a role for governments to support the technology. I would however also like to appeal to the CCS expert community to play an important role: the role of independent CCS critics. Many supposedly independent CCS experts are currently actively promoting CCS. Although such advocacy may be typical of technological experts, it is problematic for CCS for three reasons.
Firstly, CCS is in desperate need of critical scrutiny. The technology has significant shortcomings, which can only be exposed and addressed by experts who know the ins and outs of the technology. Those experts, however, are increasingly advocates of the technology and in many cases blind to drawbacks and selective listeners, dismissive of criticism. If CCS' weaknesses are not recognised, improvement may be hampered.
Secondly, CCS has sufficiently powerful supporters; it does not need independent academics to engage in advocacy. For the fossil-fuel industry that has to act in a carbon-constrained world CCS is a matter of survival. The industry has no choice: it has to stage an effective lobby for CCS, and it is resourceful enough. Valuable time of independent experts is best spent on research on the shortcomings of CCS, not on promotional activity.
Thirdly, the lay public, in order to make an informed assessment of CCS, needs reliable information on risks and benefits. Social science indicates that non-experts are more likely to trust independent experts than private sector or government representatives. If the public perceives the CCS expert community as CCS advocates who are largely oblivious to or out of touch with their concerns, severe public resistance and mistrust could emerge. This is already obvious in recently stalled CCS projects in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
Where have we seen this technological advocacy among experts before? Nuclear energy was once a promising technology, but the lack of an independent and critical expert community helped fuel controversy. The CCS community seems on track to make the same mistake. Peer pressure within the expert community to not be viewed as a CCS-sceptic is contributing to this development.
It is in the best interest of improving CCS technology and hence of mitigating climate change that an expert community is developed that leaves ample room for critical feedback and expresses the limitations of CCS, that leaves advocacy to industry, and that engages in an open and respectful debate on the technology with the general public. Only then will CCS be in a position to make a difference for climate change.  

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The second Dutch CO₂ Capture Technology Symposium took place on 14 December at the library of Utrecht University. Eighty interested engineers and scientists attended the various presentations on capture technology. In his introduction speech Chairman Daniel Jansen of ECN placed CCS in the abatement portfolio for climate change. He also advocated the importance for research on CO₂ capture, as capture is the most expensive step in the whole CCS chain. 

Hans Geerlings of the TU Delft gave an interesting overview of the different ways to capture CO₂. This presentation was followed by Geert Versteeg from Procede Group/Groningen University, who focused on the development of solvents for post combustion capture. Although he was very confident that big steps in cost reductions are feasible, he warned that the holy grail will not be easily found.

Earl Goetheer from TNO Science and Industry presented the results of their research on Phase contactors. These membranes can separate a gas from a liquid and allow molecules to move from the gas to the liquid and vice versa.

The case of Precombustion by Adsorption was presented by Ed van Selow from ECN. He showed promising results of the SEWEGS demonstration plant in Petten. The last presentation was given by Ad Verkooijen of the TU Delft; he stressed the importance of good system integration of the capture unit and the power plant.

The symposium was organized by CAPTECH, NPT and CATO-2. CAPTECH is the sister programme of CATO, dedicated to fundamental research on capture technology. It is financed by SenterNovem through the EOS programme and coordinated by ECN. NPT is the platform for Dutch process technologists. NPT is a collaboration of KIVI-NIRIA and KNCV.

Presentations are available on the CATO website  

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In November 2009 Erik Lysen, CATO's international CCS liaison, visited the Canadian provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan. Earlier this year he was invited by Doug Horner, minister of Advanced Education and Technology of the province of Alberta, to come and explore opportunities for collaboration in CCS research and technology commercialization. Both provinces have considerable financial means and economical autonomy. The mission showed that there is a keen interest in both provinces to cooperate with the Netherlands in the CCS field. 

The Canadian connection
In June 2009 Minister Doug Horner visited the Netherlands. During a meeting at the Ministry of Economic Affairs he was introduced to representatives of the Dutch CCS research programme CATO-2. At this occasion the Alberta CCS plans were discussed as well as the CATO-2 programme. Suggestions for collaboration were made and later on invitations for a Dutch mission arrived from Canada. The Dutch mission was carried out by Annemarieke Grinwis of the Dutch ministry of Economic affairs and Erik Lysen of CATO.

The mission programme consisted of a series of meetings with CCS stakeholders and researchers in Edmonton, Alberta. For Erik Lysen participating in the PTRC France-Canada CCS Conference in Regina, Saskatchewan formed also part of the mission.

A bit of background

Under Canada's federal system provincial governments are among others responsible for economic affairs. The provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are each vast areas (about 16 times the Netherlands), thinly populated and they have large reserves of natural resources like oil, natural gas, coal and uranium. Saskatchewan has experience in the field of CCS through the well known IEA-GHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 monitoring and storage project.

Both Alberta and Saskatchewan have ambitious plans for the reduction of CO2 emissions and CCS plays an important role in these plans.

Best approach: exchange

The best approach to initiate collaboration between the parties is the exchange of experts and students. Enabling Canadian experts and students as well as their Dutch colleagues to take part in research projects and programs for longer or shorter periods of time is the most efficient way of sharing knowledge and expertise and offers the best chances for successful collaboration.

The executive director of the Alberta Energy Research Institute, Eddy Isaacs proposed the development of a collaborative research project on CCS that supports the commercial scale projects moving towards implementation. It is important to focus on these projects in order to get industries interested.
During the last week of January 2010 Malcolm Wilson of the University of Regina and member of the CATO-2 Advisory Board will visit the Netherlands. Steps will be taken then to work out a concrete joint proposal.

PTRC France-Canada workshop on CCS
This workshop was organized by the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) to stimulate contacts and collaboration between French and Canadian experts and institutions. Projects of PTRC are Weyburn-Midale CO2 monitoring and storage (2000-2011) and Aquistore. (All highly informative presentations are available for CATO-2 members on the restricted area of www.co2-cato)

• A few observations from the workshop
• Both France and Canada want to become a world leader in the field of CCS
• The 3.5 billion dollars (Can) for CCS demos is largely funded by the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The federal government supports R&D with 55 million.
• France supports a CCS R&D program since 2005 with 27 million Euro on a total of 70 million Euro.
• A French Demonstration Fund for New Energy Technologies (450 million Euros for 2009-2012) covers 110 million Euro for CCS. 
• Annual injection of CO2 (piped 320 km from the North Dakota Great Plains Synfuel plant, lignite gasification) in the Weyburnfield is 2 MT per year, and in the Midale field 1 MT per year. Since the injection started a total of 13 MT has been stored. Total expected storage in 2025: 30 MT. The Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has significantly boosted the declined oil production of the about 100 wells back to values of about 30.000 barrels per day.

And some more observations
During his visit Erik Lysen was introduced to several politicians, industrial leaders and researchers in the field of CCS. He was also interviewed by the local Regina newspaper which resulted in an article, published next day, on international CCS cooperation. At the Alberta Research Council presentations were given about the Alberta energy work and the CATO-2 programme was presented. A meeting was also arranged with the R&D manager of the Edmonton Research Centre of Syncrude Canada in which detailed background information was given about the oil production from oil sands in Alberta. On referring to the high CO2 emissions of this process Erik Lysen was shown a graph of Cambridge Energy Research Associates in which the emission from the well to the retail pump was calculated in kg CO2 equivalent per barrel of crude oil and compared to the heat content of the crude oil itself (which is 430 kg CO2 equiv per barrel of oil). This shows that Canadian mined oil takes a middle position (an additional 130 kg CO2 is emitted). Saudi light oil is relatively the best (only 80 kg CO2 extra), and Canadian in-situ mined oil from the oil sands causes most extra emission, but is equal to Middle East Heavy oil with about 160 kg extra CO2 emission.  

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In November 2009 two important conferences in the field of CCS communication and social acceptance took place in Paris. On these occasions CATO-2 members of Shell, ECN and Leiden University played an active role in both organisation and presentation of research.

 IEA GHG's Social Research Network

On 2 and 3 November a two-day conference of the IEA GHG (Implementing Agreement on Greenhouse gas) Social Research Network took place, also in Paris. This network has been established to  foster the conduct and dissemination of social science research related to CCS in order to improve understanding of public concerns as well as improve the understanding of the processes required for deploying CCS projects.

 Dancker Daamen (Leiden University) and Marjolein de Best-Waldhober (ECN) served in the organizing committee of the workshop and both gave several presentations. CATO-2 researcher Suzanne Brunsting presented three CCS projects, Barendrecht, Ketzin and Beeskow.

A survey of this conference will be published shortly on www.ieagreen.org.uk

Global CCS Institute: Communicating for CCS projects - What have we learned in five years?

On November 4th 2009, the Global CCS Institute held a one-day workshop in Paris focusing on communication issues for carbon capture and storage projects. The major goal for the day was to share the findings of the past five years of international social research on CCS and translate it into hands-on communication tips for project proponents, industry leaders, policy makers, and regulators.

This workshop included presentations from leading risk communication experts together with case studies from project developers highlighting their approaches to public awareness and stakeholder engagement.

Several CATO-2 partners were involved in this workshop: CATO-2 members and well known organisers Dancker Daamen (Leiden University) and Marjolein de Best-Waldhober (ECN) served again in the organizing committee of the workshop, and both presented research as well. Bart Terwel (Leiden University) managed to summarize findings of four year research on public trust and acceptability of CCS in "just three minutes". Emma ter Mors (Leiden University) managed to do the same for her research to answer the question How does perceived credibility of stakeholders affect laypeople's information selection, information processing, and attitude formation regarding CCS?

Margriet Kuijper (Shell) gave a very informative presentation on the Barendrecht case, titled "Public Acceptance of onshore CO2 storage in depleted gasfields. Theory and Practice based on Barendrecht Project experiences"

For workshop agenda and powerpoint presentations go to:

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/events/gccsi_events_conferences.html  

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• Niels Meis: 15 February 2010 Utrecht University: Supported modified hydrotalcites as sorbent for CO₂ capture, promotor: Prof. Dr. Ir. K.P. de Jong
• Frank van Bergen, 17 November 2009, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University: Effect of coal matrix swelling on enhanced coalbed methane production, promotor Prof. Dr. C.J. Spiers.
• Bart Terwel, Leiden University: Origins and consequences of public trust: toward an understanding of public acceptance of carbon dioxide capture and storage. Promotor: Prof.Dr. N. Ellemers
• Emma ter Mors: Dealing with information about complex issues - The role of source percetions, Leiden University, promotor: Prof. Dr. N. Ellemers
• Patrick van Hemert: 'Manometric determination of supercritical gas sorption in coal', Utrecht University, September 1 2009, supervised by Prof. Dr. J. Bruining 
• Mohammad Abu Zahra, 13 oktober 2009, Delft University of Technology Carbon Dioxide Capture from Flue Gas: Development and Evaluation of Existing and Noval Process Concepts. Promotor:- Prof.dr.ir. P.J. Jansens, Supervisor:- Dr.ir. E.L.V. Goetheer
• Emilia Liteanu, 15 December 209, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University: Subsurface impact of CO₂ - Response of carbonate rocks and wellbore cement to supercritical CO₂ injection and long term storage; Promotor: Prof. Dr. C.J. Spiers
• Suzanne Hangx, 14 September 2009, Faculty of Geosciences. Utrecht University: Geological storage of CO₂: mechanical and chemical effects on host and seal formations. Promotor: Prof. dr. C.J. Spiers

This newsletter has been compiled and edited by the CATO-2 Communications department. Photographs: CATO/Mirjam van Deutekom

If you have questions, comments or contributions, please contact the program office/Sander van Egmond

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