If climate change is to be combated, carbon capture and storage (CCS) will have an absolutely critical role to play. A combination of leading-edge research and skills development is underway to help move the technology to full-scale deployment within the next decade.
With fossil fuel power stations certain to make a major contribution to global energy supplies for the foreseeable future, a reliable way of preventing the carbon dioxide (CO2) they produce from entering the atmosphere is urgently needed. CCS – capturing the CO2 at the power plant and moving it safely to an underground storage site, a porous rock layer a kilometre or more down, sealed by solid rocks above – is a technology designed to do exactly that. Estimates suggest it could cut CO2 emissions from UK fossil power plant by 90 per cent or more.
The Research Councils UK Energy Programme is investing in a suite of initiatives designed to help propel CCS to technical and commercial viability at power station scale. They include research aimed at improving the effectiveness and reliability of the whole CCS chain, the training of experts capable of making this new technology an industrial reality, and input to the policies needed to underpin its development and deployment.
Support for Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) has helped create the UK’s largest CCS research group and a world-class centre of expertise. From technologies and energy systems needed to separate CO2 at power stations through to R&D into geological storage, SCCS is focused on delivering advances that make a real impact in terms of helping to secure full-scale CCS deployment. “With Energy Programme funding, we’re also managing the UK CCS Community Network,” says Professor Jon Gibbins of the University of Edinburgh (partners in SCCS with Heriot-Watt University and the British Geological Survey). “Its aim is to encourage high-quality collaboration and to communicate key research results that enhance fundamental understanding of CCS, including the non-technical impacts.”
Energy Programme support is also underpinning the University of Nottingham’s development of new types of reusable adsorbents that selectively ‘soak up’ CO2 from flue gases, as well as research led by Newcastle University into issues affecting the safe, efficient transportation of captured CO2 to storage sites via pipelines. In addition, a new Industrial Doctoral Training Centre led by the University of Nottingham aims to create a new breed of multi-skilled engineer whose expertise covers the full range of technical, economic, social and policy issues that will shape the future of this strategically vital technology.