CO Capture and Storage - Energy and Climate: How to Achieve a Successful Energy Transition - page 115

Numerous EORprojects involving CO 2 injection are being investigated
worldwide. Many such projects operate or are launched in the USAwhere
70 such projects exist already. New projects are also being investigated in
Europe. In the north of Scotland, BP has been investigating the injection of
1.3million tons of CO 2 per year produced by a 350MW power plant
located at Peterhead in northeast Scotland.
The project involved the production of a mixture of hydrogen and CO 2
from natural gas, the hydrogen thus produced being used in a combined
cycle after separation of CO 2 but, presently, it is delayed or it may perhaps
even be cancelled.
Shell and Statoil are investigating an EOR project involving the injec-
tion in the Norwegian field of Draugen of 2.5million tons of CO 2
recovered from a gas-fired 860MW power plant.
In Germany, electricity producers have announced their intention to
build pilot plants and demonstration units for validating the application
of CCS to coal-fired power plants. The Vattenfall Company is building a
30MW pilot plant for testing oxy-fuel combustion in the 'Schwarze
Pumpe' industrial zone on the Brandenburg/Saxony border. Other elec-
tricity producers such as RWE and E.ON have also announced their
intention to build demonstration units.
Research and development programmes are needed to develop safer
and more cost-effective CCS installations.
The main obstacles arise from economics: CCS costs are presently
around 50 per ton of avoided CO 2 . Further cost reductions are required

in order to ensure CCS deployment.
It is also essential to demonstrate the safety and reliability of geological
storage over very long periods of time (centuries or even thousands of
years). For that purpose, it is necessary to improve the knowledge of CO 2
behaviour in geological reservoirs.

D

Legal and social framework for geological storage

Carbon dioxide geological storage currently suffers from a lack of a
regulatory framework, especially in the case of onshore operations.
Appropriate legislation applying to long-term storage has yet to be defined.
This situation slows down the deployment of CCS and has to be clarified.
Onshore, existing regulations which can be applied to geological
storage vary from country to country and generally are not defined for
CO 2 geological storage as such.
The only case which does not require a new regulatory framework is
CO 2 injection in hydrocarbon reservoirs for EOR.