Promotion of conference on track

In what is considered a fast-moving, highly visible banner for the COP17-conference on climate change, the Climate Train has started its month-long journey across South Africa. Its aim will be to document the impact of climate change on communities, and also to act as a resource hub showcasing low-carbon technologies.

It will also present information and learning experiences regarding climate change mitigation, adaptation and innovation.

The train will arrive in Durban on 27 November, in time for the events ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties. It will be parked at the station for visits by delegates, learners, the public and activists.

The knowledge carriage comprises a resource centre, while the conference carriage has space to host roundtable dialogue sessions, conferences, seminars, film screenings and theatre performance.

The creative carriage with a learning space where creative cultural practitioners, artists and others can work on projects completes the line-up.

Among the initiatives along the train route would also be the introduction of a climate charter discussion, aimed at finding an African response and contribution, reported  Engineering News.

One of the low-carbon technologies that the Climate Train’s resource centre will no doubt refer to, is carbon capture and storage (CCS).

It is a technology to prevent large quantities of CO₂ from being released into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuel in power generation and other industries.

It is often regarded as a means of mitigating the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming.

The process is based on capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from large point sources, such as fossil fuel power plants, and storing it in such a way that it does not enter the atmosphere.

CCS applied to a modern conventional power plant could reduce CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere by approximately 80 to 90 percent compared to a plant without CCS.

It is estimated that the economic potential of CCS could be between 10 percent and 55 percent of the total carbon mitigation effort until year 2100.

More than 90 percent of South Africa’s  power is generated from coal and other industries, for example the synfuel industry  also uses large quantities of coal, which is resulting in the release of over 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

The government has committed the country to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and has established the South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage (SACCCS) to investigate the feasibility of CCS in South Africa. CCS is a fairly new method, only becoming commercially available in 2000.

CCS can be used to capture 90 percent of the emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants, enabling existing plants to continue generating electricity to meet increased international demand for decarbonised energy, Alstom carbon dioxide (CO₂) systems business development director Dr Philippe Paelinck, told Engineering News.

Worldwide, the power generation industry accounts for about 40 percent of global CO₂ emissions, while transport accounts for about 20 percent of global emissions. This means the power sector is the primary target for dealing with CO₂ emissions.

“To reduce the CO₂ emissions from power generation, we can take three main approaches. The first is to increase decarbonised technologies, like hydro, wind, solar and nuclear.

“The second is increased efficiency of fossil fuel power generation. We must do more with less.

“However, new fossil fuel installations are continuously being built to meet increasing energy demand, which means that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is needed. This is the third approach – decarbonising current power generation,” said Dr Paelinck.

Storage of the 99 percent pure CO₂ is typically done at depths of between 2 000 m and 3 000 m in sedimentary basins and saline formations.

These are porous rock layers into which the CO₂ is injected. The liquid CO₂ is trapped in these formations and dissolves in any saline water present.

“Eventually, the CO₂ will mineralise over time, so the longer it stays there, the safer the storage becomes. About 50% of CO₂ is permanently trapped after only 10 years in the porous structure.”

However, Dr Paelinck warns that studies on suitable storage sites need to be conducted by countries and validated before carbon capturing begins.

Alstom’s CCS technologies that can be retrofitted take two main forms, namely post-combustion CO₂ capture and storage and oxycombustion CO₂ capture and storage.

In post-combustion, CO2 is removed from the flue gas by washing the gas with a solvent. Advanced amine solutions have been piloted and demonstrated in large-scale applications by Alstom and other companies and are well known in the natural gas industry as a useful solution.

Further, Alstom is also developing a chilled ammonia solution, which uses a simple reaction of ammonium carbonate to ammonium bicarbonate to wash out the CO₂ from the flue gas. This requires less energy than the advanced amine technology.

The company’s second carbon capture solution is oxycombustion, which combusts the fuel in an oxygen-rich atmosphere to create a CO₂-rich flue gas that can then easily be captured and stored.

“CCS must be considered as a transition measure in South Africa until other energy sources can gradually replace high-carbon fuels,” he told Engineering News.

A publicly available study, commissioned by Alstom, indicates that the cost of implementing CCS on existing and new installations is similar to the cost for other decarbonised energy-generation technologies, which means that it is financially viable, explains Dr Paelinck.

CCS solutions require energy to capture and compress the gas and a CCS solution will come at an energy penalty of about 20% to power plants to reduce their CO₂ emissions by 90 percent.

Retrofitted or greenfield CCS technologies together can help to account for about 20% of emission reductions by 2035, he notes.

State-owned power utility Eskom research manager Barry McColl told Engineering News the Medupi power station, which is under construction, is not CCS ready but the Kusile power station, also under construction, is CCS ready.

• Add New
• Search

Comments (0)

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Comment:

Title:

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2