We are nearing the end of 2011, and in our last Executive Board meeting we have just approved the 2012-2014 workplan. Although the CATO-2 Project Plan covers the full duration of the program (2009-2014) it was agreed that yearly updates would be prepared, implemented and approved by our EB. At the end of 2010 - in preparing the 2011-2014 plan - these changes were merely related to budget shifts over the years and did not involve major changes in project scope. In preparing the 2012-2014 we did have to cope with some significant changes in the CCS landscape.

The decision to discontinue Barendrecht as one of the storage pilots - after plans for another pilot at the Chemelot site were quietly  abandoned at an earlier stage - may be seen as the onset to some major changes in the Dutch CCS landscape. Discontinuation of Barendrecht led to the decision to abandon all plans for on-shore storage. A decision that might be qualified as "just-in-time" for the provincial elections, but will be interpreted by some parties, in particular those involved in the NER-300 tender, as "disappointingly and uncomfortably late". And obviously also for CATO-2 disqualification of all on-shore storage - albeit anticipated to some extent - and in fact discontinuation of CCS activities in northern Netherlands - as also plans for the Magnum gasifier were postponed - might be seen as a potential threat to the program as they have significant impact in terms of scope, budget and stakeholder support.

In dealing with the challenges imposed by the above decisions, support of our Advisory Board has been of great importance. In their yearly review they addressed the issue of possible delays in the deployment of CCS:

"CATO-2 is of great (global) importance to the development of CCS. A delay in the execution of (demo) projects does not decrease the relevance of CATO-2, it actually enhances the importance of the program. CATO-2 helps to preserve and expand the CCS knowledge base, ensures continuity in the capacity building process and maintains the existing CCS network."

It is comforting to conclude at the end of yet another project year that all parties acknowledged the recommendations of our Advisory Board, and although some significant changes to the scope of the program were implemented, all partners remain within the consortium and the budget has been secured.

The decision to discontinue on-shore storage acted as a trigger to start  a more general discussion within CATO on how to deal with a changing  CCS landscape and ensure program flexibility. To address these issues the CATO-2 Program Council and Work Package leaders assembled for a workshop at Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen. In this workshop a number of external factors were identified and corresponding research questions were defined such as:

• "Do we have sufficient storage capacity in place, should on-shore fields prove to be permanently unavailable?"
• "Do we know enough about the impact of CO₂ to the marine environment now that on-shore pilots are cancelled and off-shore storage becomes more important?"
• "Does Fukushima affect the role of fossil fuels in the Energy mix and hence that of CCS?"
• "Does the Mongstad debate on nitrosamines and nitramides have an implication for the Dutch demo's?"

A great number of questions - far beyond the scope of this address - could be (and have been) identified and will serve as the starting point for new research proposals. Proposals that, once approved and executed, will ensure that CATO-2 can continue to provide valuable output in a changing CCS landscape.

I once had lunch in a restaurant called the Ubiquitous Chip. For those of you interested in restaurants, you will find the place in Glasgow, close to Glasgow university. Although the name of the restaurant might give a different impression, no fries or whatsoever were served (just to prevent any disappointments). I was employed as manager R&D by one of the major vendors of geophysical equipment in the world at that time, a Japanese company with affiliates all over the world. The purpose of the visit was a meeting with local university staff to discuss options to jointly set up a field demonstration of novel equipment. Their involvement would be to assist in the selection of a suitable site. The demo was to take place at the occasion of an oil and gas congress, to be held in Glasgow later that year. Logistics -attendees to the demo had to be transferred between our booth at the congress hall and the field site -would be the sole responsibility of one of my UK colleagues also present at that lunch (let's call him Roger).

The one thing I remember most of the field demo is the review process that took place, immediately after the event had proven to be an utter disaster. Roger - who in hindsight didn't have much of a talent for logistics - had nicely arranged for the Japanese CEO of the company to officially welcome visitors at our booth (drinks and all), visitors that would subsequently be transferred to the field site. Roger had set up a schedule that accounted for an hourly service, exact departure times on display in the booth. In practice he had all arranged this by himself. This meant that he had rented a minibus, that he was to pick up people at the congress hall, that he was to drop them off at the field site, then return to the congress hall, pick up the second group, drop them off at the field site while picking up the first group and returning them to the congress center ad infinitum.

The review process clearly showed that it would have been a good idea to check upfront how much time it would take to travel from congress hall to field site. At least, that is what I made up from the sounds Roger made while being strangled by our Japanese CEO.

I might actually tell you tons of stories about Roger (and in fact might do so one day), but the main point I want to make is that unlike the chips in Glasgow, reviews and audits are ever present.  Having finished the review and approval of our 2012 program plan by our Executive Board just recently, we will have to start reviewing the progress made in 2011 within the next few days. And since we managed to free some of the CATO-2 budget and have asked parties to submit proposals for new work the next challenge is to review these proposals early next year and get them approved at the next EB meeting.

Since some of the work in CATO is performed by parties that have made customer reviews part of their business process - and since the Program Office is regarded as such a customer -the Program Office regularly receives requests to review the work done by parties in our program. And since TNO is one of the companies that have such a customer review process, and CATO parties are seen by TNO as customers of the CATO Program Office, the Program Office, in turn, has to send out enquiries to consortium partners to review the work of the Program Office.

I will take the opportunity to report on a survey that was sent out earlier this year. Of the 40 enquiries distributed to our consortium members some 50% was returned. In general, the performance of the Program Office Is well appreciated, with scores ranging between 7 and 9 on a scale of 10 (see figure 1). However, there is scope for improvement. I'll just mention a few of the remarks.

• Interaction between parties in work packages should be improved.

Although WP leaders do have a role here, the Program Office could do better in facilitating interaction within work packages.

• Flexibility of the Program is too limited.

After a thorough revision of the CATO-2B program early 2010 only minor updates were incorporated in the 2011 Program Plan. In the 2012 plan we envision that a total of some 2 million Euro worth of new project scope can be implemented (accounting for > 15% of the yearly budget).

• Progress monitoring could be improved.

Although the Program Offices prepares an overview of the yearly progress from the deliverable  summaries, this document is not very well suited to get a quick impression of the "state of the work". As of 2011 an additional management summary will  of be prepared based on interviews with SP coordinators. 

In establishing whether CO₂ storage is safe, it is necessary to analyse every conceivable and inconceivable risk. CATO2 examined the performance of the planned CO₂ storage in TAQA Energy's depleted P18 natural gas reservoirs at the North Sea, a potential CO₂ storage site located 20 kilometres from shore of the "2nd Maasvlakte" near Rotterdam.

With the CATO2 studies many specific questions with respect to safety and cost effectiveness have been addressed,  for example:

• what does the subsurface look like?
• what will happen with the CO₂ once it is injected in the reservoirs?
• will it not migrate to places where we do not want it?
• can chemical reactions take place that attack the integrity of the reservoirs?
• what is the quality of the existing gas wells?
• which materials should we use for sealing those wells?
• under what conditions can we inject CO₂ ?
• what should - next to the EU storage directive - be taken into account when storing CO₂ in Dutch depleted natural gas reservoirs?

No showstoppers

Rob Arts, coordinator of the CATO2 subproject focusing specifically on underground storage and monitoring, summarizes the outcomes of the CATO2 studies centred around the use of the depleted P18 natural gas reservoirs so far: "On the basis of the history of natural gas production, a thorough geological evaluation, dynamic reservoir simulations and geo-mechanical models, we can conclude that the subsurface of the P18 location is technically very well suitable for CO2 storage. Furthermore, an evaluation of the state and design of the seven wells penetrating the P18 reservoirs did not lead to any 'showstoppers', though some engineering modifications will still be required prior to the start of injection. With the help of reservoir simulation models we have studied for example under what pressure CO₂ should be injected and to what extent CO₂ should be heated prior to injection, such that no problems will occur like "freezing" in the reservoir leading to injectivity problems; with less heating, unnecessary costs and unnecessary CO₂ emissions are avoided. This type of modelling is far from straightforward and asked for modifications in commercially existing simulation codes. Improvements are still ongoing within the framework of the CATO2 project in order to capture the thermodynamic processes properly. Finally an initial first concept of how such a reservoir could be monitored has also been proposed.

In general one could say that the specific study around the P18 reservoirs resulted in a global workflow to identify potential showstoppers at an early stage of such a large project. This workflow will definitely help to establish the suitability of other potential storage sites.

Besides these case specific studies, CATO2 is focusing on longer term research and development in order to optimize CO₂ injection in future sites. This varies from adapting existing simulation codes corroborated by lab experiments (as already mentioned) to the development of more suitable corrosion-resistant materials to the development and testing of improved cost-effective high resolution monitoring tools. With the outcomes of our research the industry will be able to perform CO₂ storage in a safe and optimal way."

Rotterdam storage and capture demonstration project

The CATO2 studies described are part of the ROAD project, the Rotterdam storage and capture demonstration project. Initiators E.ON Benelux and Electrabel as part of GDF SUEZ plan to capture up to 25% of CO₂ emissions from a 1,000 MW power plant in Rotterdam and transport it offshore for geological storage in the depleted P18 natural gas reservoirs 3,500 meters deep under the seabed.

TAQA is operator of the P18 reservoirs and related infrastructure and has applied for a storage license. The P18 reservoirs have 35 million tons of CO₂ storage capacity allowing up to 15 years of continuous injection. According to the current planning, CO₂ injection will start in 2015. 

More information

More information on the P18 field is available on our website. If you have any further questions, please contact Rob Arts.

Anne Pluymakers is a CATO PhD-student who loves doing hands-on experimental work combined with the puzzle of explaining her findings from a mechanistic point of view. Finding practical solutions for an experimental set-up comes naturally to her. In a labtour, for instance, she pointed out the ‘hightech' fluid pressure solution for her experiment: a simple plastic funnel with stop-cock mounted on the wall above the experiment.

Her PhD research focuses on the question: will the injection of carbon dioxide alter the sealing capacity of the (damaged) caprock? The results of Anne Pluymakers' research are important for the proposed storage of CO₂ in the underground, but can also be of use in relation to the exploitation of oil- or gas fields, geothermal energy and can improve our understanding of earthquakes.

Caprock is the thick layer that covers and seals the reservoir rock in which CO₂ storage may take place in the future. There are several kinds of caprock. In the north of the Netherlands, anhydrite and rocksalt are the most common types of caprock whereas in the subsurface of the North Sea clay caprocks are more common. Anne has started working on anhydrite: CATO partners were interested in the results, and material was made available from core samples taken from a depleted gas field below the North of the Netherlands.

Many reservoir rocks and their caprocks are cut by small faults or fractures.  These are usually sealed and no CO2 can leak out of them.  However, to check whether they will remain sealed, even if disturbed when CO2 is injected into the reservoir, Anne carries out experiments on the crushed material ("fault gouge") that fills faults in anhydrite caprock.   This type of experiment will help to determine whether CO2 can leak out of faults, and if so how much.

For the start-up of Annes experimental work on fault gouges the first - time consuming - step was grinding the rock into particles using a mortar and pestle, and subsequently sieving the powder to create batches of different particle sizes, varying from 10 to 400 micron (1 micron = 10-3 millimeter). This material simulates natural fault gouge in anhydrite caprock.

The next set of experiments has progressed to the planning phase: she will determine whether faults in anhydrite can be reactivated by CO2 injection, and if so whether the resulting fault motion is capable of producing small earthquakes. The stability of such faults depends on whether motion becomes easier or more difficult once initiated.  These effects vary with the type of material (anhydrite differs from clay, a material that Anne's  colleague Jon Samuelson works on, also in the CATO project), the temperature, pressure, and the chemical composition on fluids present. The presence of supercritical CO₂ may influence fault properties through chemical interactions.

During her PhD Anne will perform several series of carefully controlled experiments, to collect data that will be used to model the mechanical behaviour of different seals and the influence of CO₂ on mechanical properties and seal integrity. In the future, her results can be used to help predict whether particular rock formations are suitable for CO₂-storage.

Arnold Mulder, PhD student at the RUG, had never dreamed of doing a promotion project on a purely academic subject. He is excited, however, about his current PhD research into incentive systems for the large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) for CATO. "I have always loved doing research," he says, "but I was not really interested in obtaining a doctorate for a problem that is only of interest to the people at universities. CATO bridges the gap between practice and theory and that is why the CCS value chain fascinates me."

One of the determining factors in investment decisions about CCS for large scale power plants or industrial plants is the price per tonne of emitted CO₂. At the moment, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has a quite low and volatile price of around € 10 per tonne CO₂-emission. In other words, it is not very costly to emit CO₂, whereas the adjustments needed for CCS require big investments. The first part of Arnold Mulder's PhD therefore concentrates on the price of CO₂: how high and stable can the carbon allowance price become given different ETS policy arrangements? In the second part CCS case studies are examined to test the effect of various incentives schemes, including the ETS carbon price, on the economic viability of these projects.

He applauds the recent Australian decision to implement a carbon tax for five years, after which an Australian emission rights trading scheme will take its place. "Investors need security and stability in order to make investment decisions about power plants, for instance. A highly volatile carbon price in the first five years of its existence could have harmed investor confidence in the emission trading scheme. Through the tax the Australian authorities are effectively buying time to get the ETS in place. Uncertainty has dented the confidence in the European ETS in its first five years of existence: oversupply of emission rights, fraud, the general economic climate and other factors have driven the price of CO₂. If you want to stimulate investments in CCS as a viable climate mitigation option, stability is the key. Subsidies and taxes could provide such stability. Unfortunately, subsidies usually disappear quickly because of their success: the limited available funds are soon depleted."

The recent IEA report underlines the need for action, soon. Arnold Mulder hopes that his research will contribute to positive investment decisions for climate mitigation measures such as CCS or investment in renewable energy sources.

The Dutch do not know much about carbon capture and storage. Public perception research by CATO subprogramme 5 has shown that it is not uncommon for a majority of the Dutch public to believe that CO₂ can explode or that CCS is a solution for the depletion of the ozone layer.

CATO has developed a new website in Dutch to inform the public about CCS. Special files describe the Why, How and Safety of CCS. People may find answers to more specific questions in the elaborate FAQ section. Furthermore, there are News and Opinion sections to stimulate the debate about CCS. An interactive Argument Map helps the public to determine their own opinion about the economic, environmental, safety and other aspects of carbon capture and storage.

Around 1^st December the website will be made available to the public at the URL of the current CATO programme website: http://www.co2-cato.org/. The (English) programme website will then be available at http://www.co2-cato.org/.

CATO events

• 15 December 2011 PhD dinner (Utrecht) (For CATO participants only!)
• 7 February 2012 General Assembly + New Year's symposium and drinks (Utrecht). (For CATO participants only!)
• 8 February 2012 Advisory Board. (For CATO participants only!)
• March 2012 Dutch CCS Symposium
• 21 June 2012 CATO Day (For CATO participants only!)

Other CCS events

29-30 November 2011: Symposium Bodem Breed; Lunteren, the Netherlands

15-17 February 2012: Realising Coal's Clean Energy Capabilities; Prague, Czech Republic 

21 February 2012: Potential environmental effects of CO2 leakage in the marine and terrestrial environment: Understanding; monitoring; mitigation; Nottingham, United Kingdom 
29 February 2012 CO2ReMoVe Project Closing Conference; Paris, France

26-27 March 2012: 3rd EAGE CO2 Geological Storage Workshop; Edinburgh, UK