A global imperative
Climate change is one of the most severe challenges facing the world19/11/2008 | By Liv Monica Bargem Stubholt
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that in order to prevent dangerous effects on the climate, the global average temperature must not exceed a maximum of 2˚C compared to pre-industrial level. This means that global emissions have to be reduced by 50-85 percent from 2000 to 2050 and to peak no later than 2015.
We must all work to ensure the stabilisation of the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate.
Keeping this in mind, in the base case scenario of the World Energy Outlook 2007 the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that the global primary energy demand is expected to increase by 55 percent between now and 2030. 74 percent of the rise in demand is expected to stem from developing countries. This is driven mainly by power generation. 84 percent of this increase will be met by fossil fuels. Coal is by far the most important energy source in power generation. Non-hydro renewables, including wind, solar and geothermal energy, are projected to have the strongest growth, but from a small base.
Our challenge is to meet this demand for energy. At the same time such a huge increase in consumption of fossil fuel is not sustainable and carries the threat of severe changes to the climate. The existing policies and measures will by no means make it possible to reach a long-term goal of limiting the global warming to a maximum of 2˚C. This will require deeper cuts in developed countries emissions, as well as increased efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses in developing countries. The pattern must be changed and the technologies exist to make it possible to move to a low-carbon economy.
It is crucial that we welcome, promote and contribute to research, innovation, development, testing and dissemination of new technologies that will help us mitigate climate change. This requires increased focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency. But we must also meet the challenge of securing a sustainable future energy supply by reducing the emissions from the production and use of fossil fuels. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the most promising technologies to achieve that. This technology will complement other climate change mitigation actions by providing an option for using fossil fuels during the transition to a low-carbon economy.
According to both the IPCC and the IEA, CCS has, after energy efficiency, the second-largest potential for global emission reductions. It offers the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 85-95 percent from coal and gas-fired power plants. It also provides a large potential for reduction in emissions from other industrial processes. In order to mobilise the financial resources needed to enable this technology to reach its full potential, we must create financial incentives for private investments. However, these incentives should not discriminate between technologies. We do not wish that CCS projects crowd-out investments in renewables and energy efficiency projects.
We also need an international legal framework to regulate CCS. Norway welcomes the European Commission’s proposal for a directive on the geological storage of CO2. A common European legal framework enabling safe storage of CO2 is important in our joint efforts to make CCS an important measure for mitigating climate change.
Norway is one of a few countries that have considerable experience in storing CO2 in geological formations under the seabed, and today CCS is an integrated part of Norway’s national mitigation policy. We believe that the Norwegian storage experiences will be highly relevant to the ongoing work in the EU and globally on CCS.
The Sleipner Project
Since 1996, about one million tons of CO2 per year have been separated from gas produced on the Sleipner Vest Field in the North Sea and stored in the Utsira Formation; a saline aquifer located 1,000 metres below the seabed. The Sleipner Project is so far the only facility in the world where large quantities of CO2 are stored in a geological formation below the seabed and for emission mitigation purposes. The project has collected relevant data, modelled and verified the distribution of the CO2 in the formation, and developed and demonstrated prediction methods for the movement of CO2 for many years into the future. Time∞lapse 3D seismic data were acquired in 1994, prior to the start of injection, and again in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006. New seismic data will be acquired in 2008. The data shows no unexpected movement in the storage reservoir and no sign of seepage of the stored CO2.
The Snøhvit Field in the Barents Sea provides gas to the world’s first LNG plant with CCS. The first amount of CO2 was injected and stored from the Snøhvit Field in April 2008. At full production, 700,000 tons of CO2 will be separated from the natural gas annually, piped back 145 km and reinjected and stored in the Tubåen Formation, a saline aquifer located 2,600 metres below the seabed.
New projects
Norway is building on the experiences from Sleipner and Snøhvit and is currently planning three carbon capture projects: The Test Centre Mongstad, the Mongstad Capture Project and the Kårstø project. We are also in the process of identifying appropriate new storage sites offshore. At the Mongstad Capture Project, the Norwegian government and the oil company StatoilHydro have signed an agreement to establish a full-scale CCS facility in conjunction with a combined heat and power plant at Mongstad at the west coast of Norway. In order to reduce technical and financial risk, the project will progress in two stages. The first stage covers construction and operation of the Test Centre Mongstad, a capture testing facility, which will be operational by 2011. The testing facility will have the capacity to capture at least 100,000 tons of CO2 annually. The second stage, i.e. full-scale capture of approximately 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year, shall be in place by the end of 2014. The third project is a full-scale CCS solution for a gas-fired power plant at Kårstø in the South-western part of Norway. The capacity of the capture plant will be one million tons of CO2 per year.
Norway is strongly committed to international cooperation on CCS. We need to combine our efforts in order to enhance the development and deployment of CCS and thus contribute to a much needed reduction in global CO2 emissions. All countries have by necessity their individual approach to the task of meeting the climage change challenge. This must not prevent us from cooperating and supporting the choice and efforts of others.
