Why doesn’t Greece like carbon capture?
LEIGH PHILLIPS, The EUobserver, September 23, 2008.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - If Europe is to get serious on climate change, we have no choice but to embrace a controversial series of carbon emission mitigation technologies known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS.

Its proponents say without the technology, coal with continue to produce some 60 percent of Europe’s energy needs and all its carbon emissions will continue to enter the atmosphere.

Greece has worries about carbon capture technology similar to those of environmental groups.

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However, within the Council of Ministers, Greece is one of the technologies biggest opponents, arguing that there are other environmental considerations.

The Balkan country’s concerns have been dismissed as worries about losing competitive advantage to other member states as they are most likely unable to deploy CCS due to earthquakes in the region.

But Greece’s concerns go much further.

The EUobserver recently sat down with Kyriakos Psychas, the Greek mission to the EU’s counselor on the environment to understand his country’s objections.

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Not against CCS:

“It would not be true to say that we are against CCS,” inists the Greek diplomat, “or that we don’t want to see it developed. In the fight against climate change, we need every weapon available to us.

“But we have to be careful not to let these weapons backfire on us, our children or our children’s children,” he says, arguing that the burial of carbon has to be forever, and so future generations come into play.

He says that when the European Council first made a decision on CCS, it was to develop the technology in an environmentally safe way. “And this has been an on-going concern that we continue to raise. In order to be sustainable, it has to be environmentally friendly and safe.”

“We believe we’re going very, very fast with the wide deployment of this novel technology,” he warns. “The parliament is also in a hurry to implement this basically untested technology.”

“What about the precautionary principle?” he asks. “Environmentally safe application needs time and patience.

“In five years’ time, if there is a big accident, that would be the end of CCS … These people who are rushing this through, without ensuring safety and environmental safeguards, may actually harm what we want to achieve with CCS.”

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Oil recovery:

“Why this rush? Is it the desire to fight climate change? Perhaps. Is it based on commercial strategies? Perhaps that is also true. Perhaps it is a combination of both,” he says, referring to the interests of oil firms in the technology.

The petrol giants such as Shell and BP are hoping to use a CCS-related process called “enhanced oil recovery” to inject CO2 into geological formations to achieve greater oil recovery.

CCS boosters say that this is not only acceptable, but to be encouraged, as the sale of recovered oil brings online supplementary revenue streams that can thus lower the overall cost of the process.

“All our experience [with CCS] so far has focussed on enhanced oil recovery by petrol companies,” he points out. “But the injection experience is not the same as a storage experience, it is different.”

And here, Mr Psychas points to worries both he and environmental groups have over the corrosive effects on storage sites, and the potential for leakage.

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Acidic brine in our aquifers:

“If the carbon leaks, how are we going to trap it? How we are going to monitor a leakage if it’s small and far away from the storage site?

The Greek diplomat argues that in order to ensure that there is no potential leakage, implementation first requires at least two years’ worth of measurement of background data that can then be compared to monitoring data during operation of a storage site. Mr Psychas says that thus part of their main efforts in discussions on CCS is ensuring reliability of any monitoring systems.

“We should be very sure we can trust the data, so we need to be very strict with the whole monitoring scheme. We need concise standards and procedures, and a verification and validation process.” He also insists this be done by an independent body.

“Additionally CO2 is not like petrol, it can dissolve minerals. This has already been established by some North American studies. By dissolving the minerals, it can

create escape paths, and since it’s buoyant, it can also get into aquifers.”

Researchers performing a 2006 United States Geological Survey (USGS) field experiment on CCS in Texas found that in their location, buried CO2 dissolved large amounts of the surrounding minerals that were supposed to keep it locked away forever.

The CO2 reacted with salty water in the geological formation turning it as acidic as vinegar. The acidified brine then dissolved other minerals, including metals such as iron and manganese, and large amounts of carbonate materials. Carbonate are often used in the cement used to contain the CO2. If these are dissolved, the CO2 could leak into the atmosphere or the acidic brine into drinking water.

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Freshwater use:

The diplomat is also concerned about problems that are specific to Greece and other Mediterranean countries.

“Carbon capture requires the use of 90 percent more freshwater than ordinary power stations. That might especially be a problem for areas in southern Europe.”

He also admits that earthquakes are indeed a concern.

“In an earthquake zone such as the south-east Mediterranean, the seismic activity of storing carbon dioxide underground might trigger earthquakes.

“So even if in the end CCS is shown to work, it might still leave some at a competitive disadvantage. We will have developed a technological tool that some countries will not be able to use due to earthquakes.”

Ultimately, like some environmental groups, he is worried that the very expensive process of developing CCS will result in monies being diverted from renewable energies, and allow the coal industry to carry on regardless.

“Of course we have to fight climate change fast, but in doing so, we might just end up burying our problems and not really facing them.

“Everyone is talking about reduction of CO2. This is not reduction – it’s removal.

“It’s like sweeping things under the rug. It’s out of sight and everything looks clean. But we all know the dangers of tripping over the lump. We cannot afford to create a situation that will cause future generations to fall over.”

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Carbon capture in Europe can begin to make money by 2030, report says.

LEIGH PHILLIPS, The EUobserver, September 23, 2008.

A controversial and experimental technology that hopes to scrub coal-fired power production of its carbon emissions and store them underground could indeed be an affordable tool in the European Union’s toolbox of alternative energy systems that aim to fix our climate problems, according to a new report.

Carbon captured from coal plants and stored underground will become economically viable by 2030, according to a new report.

The technology - “carbon capture and storage” or CCS - is the main mechanism for improving the environmental impact of coal plants within a panoply of technologies that are often promoted as ‘clean coal’ by such politicians as George Bush and the coal industry.

The technology - which is actually three different technologies that are still very much under development, the most effective of which is yet to be established - involves ‘capturing’ the carbon from the burning of coal and ’storing’ this CO2 somewhere - perhaps in an exhausted oil field, deep underground or underwater - forever - so that the carbon does not enter the atmosphere.

Apart from environmental considerations, the main obstacle to its uptake is that CCS costs two or three times what conventional coal plants do, and so thus far, power companies have balked at developing the technology.

However, according to a new report from the business management consultancy McKinsey, the technology should be “economically viable” for the private sector by 2030, and so until then, it is essential that the public purse gets the ball rolling by subsidising 10 to 12 demonstration plants to be up and running by 2015.

Until 2030, the technology would add an extra €60 to €90 per tonne of carbon released to the cost of producing coal-powered energy, making the whole idea far too expensive.

But as the cost of buying carbon pollution permits rises under the EU’s emissions trading schemes, by 2030, CCS would cost only an extra €30 to €40 per tonne of CO2, a much more affordable figure, according to a range of calculations from Deutsche Bank, UBS and other institutions.

This figure could drop still further if the technology was adopted by coal plants everywhere around the world, say the McKinsey analysts.

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Demonstration projects need funding soon:

However, if Europe does not get moving with funding such demonstration projects fairly soon, and if the first commercial projects do not start until well after the demonstration phase, “CCS could struggle to reach large scale in 2030″, says the report - and by then, it will be too late. Europe needs to make massive reductions in its carbon emissions now.

Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs hailed the report for helping “to push the technology forward”.

His comments are unsurprising, as the European Commission strongly backs the development of CCS, and as part of its package on climate and energy unveiled in January, it proposed a regulatory framework that would enable monies from the emissions trading scheme (ETS) to support CCS development.

With CCS currently under discussion in the European Parliament, Chris Davies, the British MEP responsible for steering the dossier through the parliament, has suggested that €10 billion from the ETS be set aside to finance demonstration projects.

Last March, European leaders also committed themselves to having 10 to 12 demonstration plants online by 2015.

However, despite this pledge, divisions on the technology within the council are substantial.

The UK and the Netherlands are strong backers, as carbon storage can also be used as a mechanism for pumping out extra oil from a dying oil field, something which the two countries believe can extend the life of their North Sea oil industries.

Before the recent change of government, Italy had strong oppositions, but the new Berlusconi administration has rallied behind the idea.

Germany meanwhile is wavering, while Greece is the most outspoken opponent, echoing the environmental criticisms of such groups as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and is afraid that because the country lies in an earthquake zone, it will not be able to deploy the technology anywhere in its territory and will be frozen out of any benefits from emissions reductions, meaning they will have to be made elsewhere in its economy.

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No such thing as clean coal:

Most environmental groups are steadfastly opposed, saying there is no such thing as clean coal and worry that the manoeuvre will allow the coal industry to stay in business while genuine renewable sources of energy such as wind, geothermal and solar power are sidelined.

A number of diplomats also ask why a particular technology should be benefiting from subsidies, and not renewables.

Green groups say that in any case 2030 is not soon enough to deliver the emissions savings Europe needs to make.

“The report only proves that CCS cannot be delivered within the right time frame. Climate change scientists such as those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say emissions must peak before 2015,” said a campaigner with Greenpeace, Joris Den Blanken.

“It’s just too late. Better to start right away with investing in energy efficiency and technologies that are already proven such as renewables.”

They are also concerned that CCS wastes energy, with the technology itself requiring 10 to 40 percent of the energy produced by a power station.

Environmentalists also fear that storing carbon underground is not safe or permanent, and argue that the technology is incredibly water-intensive, adding extra pressure on the already limited water resources of southern EU member states.

Ecologists are not however of one mind on the subject.

Norwegian environmental group Bellona argues that whatever the demerits of CCS, governments must be realistic and recognise that if Europe does not take the lead in developing the technology, other jurisdictions, notably China, are moving ahead with building dozens of new coal plants that without CCS technology strapped on will wipe out all the other efforts of Western governments and industry at reducing carbon emissions.

The Worldwide Fund for Animals, or WWF, also feels that CCS is a necessary evil.

Mr Davies’ proposal is to be voted on by the parliament’s environment committee on 7 October.

To read an interview with the environment attache for Greece’s mission to the EU on his country’s opposition to the technology, please read this companion article.