Report looks at Central North Sea CO2 storage hub
2012-10-01 06:57 by Anja Reitz
The report sets out a number of possible scenarios for the future of CCS in the Central North Sea and the potential to develop infrastructure and networks to capture, transport and store CO2 from across Scotland, the UK and continental Europe.
It highlights the potential for a Central North Sea Storage Hub to receive and store as much as 100 million tonnes of C02 a year by 2030 and 500 million tonnes a year by 2050 – equivalent to 25 per cent of total EU emissions in 2007 – if all opportunities are effectively exploited.
“The offshore geography of the Central North Sea gives us an unique advantage in developing CCS capabilities which has huge potential for the Scottish economy," said David Rennie, Scottish Enterprise oil and gas, thermal generation and CCS director.
“This new report highlights the scale of the opportunity of CCS and a Central North Sea hub, and the steps needed to exploit this. Much of the infrastructure and skills to develop CCS is already in place in Scotland thanks to our globally renowned oil & gas sector – and the recently launched Oil & Gas Strategy for Scotland has already highlighted CCS as an area of real significance for our existing supply chain."
“The challenge now is to make sure we fully exploit these advantages to develop a reputation for Scotland as a world-leader in this area.”
The study examines the added value of the Central North Sea as a location for CCS – particularly through its affordability, diverse geography and deliverable existing knowledge and capabilities.
This includes the re-use of significant lengths of existing subsea pipelines, offshore platforms for injection to depleted gas fields and the building of new pipelines to link clusters of capture plants in both the power and industrial sectors to the storage assets.
The publication also highlights the potential for Peterhead Port as a key location for the shipment of captured CO2 from other parts of the UK and Europe, and onward transportation to the vast storage sites of the Central North Sea. It contains new figures which estimate that the development of such an import facility could receive 4 million tonnes of CO2 per year and lead to the creation of over 500 jobs.
“It’s important to look at what we get for our public support of CCS funding," commented Professor Stuart Haszeldine University of Edinburgh, Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage. "Ideally we want low cost projects now, which help us to keep jobs, and we want projects which can extend rapidly whilst reducing difficulties. The Central North Sea offers all of that security, in well-understood and well-supported industries.”
Source: Carbon Capture Journal - Projects / Policy, Sep 21 2012