MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Carbon capture and storage is gradually gaining government attention after being overtaken by investment in wind and solar energy, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) saying the technology will be crucial to limiting global warming. The trail of an aeroplane can be seen amongst clouds and between a helicopter and a plane in the sky above Sydney in Australia, June 5, 2017. REUTERS/David Gray The IEA estimates carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be needed to cut 14 percent of the emissions that have to be abated by 2060 to limit the global rise in temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). “The size of the challenge really requires all technologies to be deployed,” IEA energy analyst Samantha McCulloch told Reuters on the sidelines of a Global CCS Institute forum in Melbourne. By one estimate, $80 billion has been invested in renewable energy compared with $20 billion in CCS, Australia’s ambassador for the environment, Patrick Suckling, told the forum. Efforts to expand carbon capture and storage include a Japanese project to bury carbon dioxide below the seabed off Hokkaido island and construction of China’s first large-scale carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project at a coal-to-chemicals plant run by Yanchang Petroleum in Xian. In Australia, the government has proposed allowing its A$10 billion (5.9 billion pounds) Clean Energy Finance Corp to provide loans to carbon capture projects as part of a “technology-neutral” approach to cutting carbon emissions. “We’re seeing renewed interest from governments,” McCulloch said. Two projects in Australia are driving hope for the technology. Chevron Corp is in the final stages of starting up the world’s largest CCS operation, estimated at A$2 billion at its huge Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on Barrow Island off Western Australia, where carbon dioxide will be stripped from natural gas, compressed, piped and injected 2 kms (1.2 miles) below the island. The other project, CarbonNet, is a A$150 million government study in the state of Victoria. CarbonNet has identified a site 1.5 kms below the seabed off the state’s coast where it estimates it could store 125 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, project director Ian Filby told the forum. It aims to have the Pelican site approved for storage and secure an injection license by 2020. Filby said the lowest cost applications for CCS would be for industrial operations, like gas processing, fertiliser manufacturing and hydrogen production, at an estimated A$30 a ton for compressing, transporting and burying carbon dioxide. That could suit a project that Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) is pursuing to use Victoria’s brown coal to produce ultra clean hydrogen fuel, a project it has said will need CCS. Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Richard Pullin
China has started work on building the first of up to eight large-scale carbon capture and storage plants, with the others at varying stages of approval, said Tony Zhang, senior adviser at the Global CCS Institute. Once operational, the Yanchang Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Project in the Shaanxi Province is expected to capture up to 800,000 tons of CO2 annually – the equivalent of 80,000 fewer cars on the road – and turn it into gas fuel. The announcement followed this this year's opening of the world's first direct air capture commercial plant in Switzerland, with a second due to open in Houston, Texas month. Carbon capture must be part of climate change response: IEA The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a necessary part of combating climate change. Australia's ambassador for the environment, Patrick Suckling, said that about $20bn had been spent on CCS, compared with $80bn on renewable energy. Chevron is close to starting up the world's largest CCS operation on an island off Western Australia, where CO2 will be stripped from natural gas and injected underground.