Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

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Stanford GCEP awards $6.6M to 7 projects; focus on combining energy conversion with carbon-neutral fuel production

March 13, 2013

Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) is awarding $6.6 million to seven research teams—six from Stanford and one from Carnegie Mellon University—to advance research on technologies for renewable energy conversion to electricity or fuels and for capturing CO₂ emissions and converting CO₂ to fuels.

The 7 awards bring the total number of GCEP-supported research programs to 104, with total funding of approximately $125 million since the project’s launch in 2002.

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Researchers propose framework for CCS infrastructure optimization to reduce GHG emissions from oil sands extraction and processing

January 28, 2013

CCS infrastructure for six key CO2 emission prices. Sources are red and sinks are blue. The amount of CO2 captured (as a proportion of the maximum capturable amount) at each source is depicted by the dark wedges. Wedges for the sinks depict the amount of CO2 stored (as a proportion of total reservoir capacity). The width of the pipeline network (green lines) is proportional to CO2 flow; the largest CO2 flow is approximately 36 MtCO2/ yr for the $155/tCO2 scenario (pipeline leaving the Athabasca oil sands area). Costs are in $US 2011. Credit: ACS, Middleton and Brandt. Click to enlarge.

Two researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Stanford University have developed an integrated framework that simultaneously considers economic and engineering decisions for the capture, transport, and storage of oil sands CO₂ emissions (CCS). The model, developed by Richard Middleton (LANL) and Adam Brandt (Stanford) optimizes CO₂ management infrastructure at a variety of carbon prices for the oil sands industry.

In a paper published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, they report that the oil sands industry lends itself well to development of CO₂ trunk lines due to geographic coincidence of sources and sinks. This reduces the relative importance of transport costs compared to nonintegrated transport systems.

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UK launches new $1.6B commercialization program for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and first UK CCS Roadmap; making a play for global leadership

April 03, 2012

Proximity of the UK’s largest industrial emitters to CO2 storage sites in the North and Irish Seas. Map provided by the Energy Technologies Institute. Source: CCS Roadmap. Click to enlarge.

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has launched a new competition for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology to drive down costs by supporting practical experience in the design, construction and operation of commercial scale CCS (CCS Commercialization Programme) with £1 billion (US$1.6 billion) direct grant support for capital funding, and additional support, subject to affordability, through low-carbon Contracts for Difference.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a process to capture carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted to the atmosphere by large point sources, such as fossil fuel power stations, and permanently to store the CO₂ deep underground. The UK Government has identified three key challenges to be tackled to enable commercial deployment of CCS in the UK:

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