Royal Dutch Shell PLC hopes to operate the world's first successful commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) project by the end of the decade. It would pull post-combustion carbon from a 340-Mw natural gas-fired power plant in Scotland for ultimate storage in a depleted British North Sea gas field.
The Peterhead CCS Project could provide information that would not be available otherwise while helping establish a new business line for the multinational oil and gas company, said Wilfried Maas, general manager for carbon capture demonstration projects at Shell Global Solutions International BV.
"Clean power is an integrated operation," he explained during a recent presentation at the US Energy Association's Washington headquarters. "We know how to do it from our well operations. All the technologies have been used elsewhere. Although this project will be expensive, we're confident it will provide information to drive down future projects' costs."
With community consultations, environmental impact assessments, and engineering design approaching completion, Shell hopes to submit planning applications this year, reach a final investment decision with the UK government and begin construction in 2015-17, and begin operations in 2018-20, Maas said.
Enabling legislation, a clear liability agreement, financial support, and early adoption benefits are essential for building a project that potentially will capture 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over 10 years by capturing 90% of the CO2 produced by one turbine, he maintained. "The Feb. 24 agreement we reached substantiated commitments by our company, the UK government, and Scottish Southern and Electric," he said.
Learning curve
Peterhead is one of four CCS projects in which Shell is involved globally, he noted. "These demonstrations can give direction on how to drive costs down, providing us a learning curve to build on for commercial projects," he said. Peterhead differs from the others by capturing CO2 from a power plant fired by gas instead of coal, and storing it offshore instead of onshore in a depleted gas reservoir instead of a saline aquifer.
"Using a depleted field offers unique advantages," Maas said. "For one thing, there are extensive records of how the pipe behaved during production. It is clear that sharing storage and transportation infrastructure makes sense in the North Sea because so much of it is already there and doesn't need to be built."
Mass said gas has different technical and economic benefits than coal, which has a larger plant footprint. But there also are potential synergies between coal and gas that could be applied, he added.
He said Peterhead will require a license from all stakeholders, the ability to operate, and the commercial size to succeed. The UK government supports it because it recognizes that without CCS, it would cost $52 billion more to run a carbon-free national economy by 2050, Maas said.
"We feel we should help customers who buy our gas use it responsibly," he said. "We believe that if we're going to have the necessary technology in the 2030s, we need to start working now. We understand cost-effectiveness and benchmark quite a lot on individual components. But we're confident that gas CCS can exist compatibly with coal CCS and renewables."
