Carbon Capture & Storage entails a re-purposing or storing of CO2 from industrial sources and coal-fired power plants. The technology isolates, compresses, and tranports CO2 from the emissions stream to an injection site to be stored underground. R&D into CCS has become a key element in the US Department of Energy portfolio, but many hurdles block the path to large-scale commercialization of CCS plants and technologies.

We ask: What changes in the market must occur for CCS to become a key enabling technology for GHG reduction? How do we reduce the cost-per-ton of capture and sequestration? What advancements in technology, infrastructure, and policy must occur to make CCS environmentally and economically feasible over the long-term?

Capturing Carbon: Cost and Technical Challenges

• What is the viability of gasification methods: pre-combustion, oxyfuel capture technologies, and post-combustion, including post-combustion supercritical? What has the investment been in each?
• How can we effectively tailor capture methods to specific industry sources (coal-fired power plants, natural gas production, cement kilns, iron reductions?
• How does the technology choice differ for power plant retrofits vs. new build (greenfield)?
• Analyzing the cost-benefit: What are the energy penalties and added costs to the power plant? How can these be reduced?T
• How do we reduce the volume of waste material generated from capture?

Storing Carbon: Cost and Technical Challenges

• How does the cost-per-ton of sequestration change depending on the type of storage (oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams, deep saline reservoirs, and deep ocean)? What strategies can be implemented to reduce cost?
• Infrastructural challenges: What is the pipeline capacity needed and how should we organize pipeline networks? What are the avenues for developing sound infrastructure- for compressors, injection wells, monitoring wells, and etc?
• How do we measure and reduce risk? What is the role of liabilities insurance and permitting?
• What are the environmental and societal concerns associated with long-term sequestration?
• What is the potential of Enhanced Oil Recovery?

CCS Investment and Projects

• What has been the investment (public, private) in CCS technology? What type and degree of investment is needed?
• What must the price of carbon be for CCS to be viable? How effective are routes to incentivize CCS via carbon emissions trading?
• What are the regulatory barriers for the capture, transport, and storage of CCS?
• How can we works towards a policy and incentives framework that will establish a viable CCS market?
• What companies are already beyond the pilot stage and running? What are the economic returns? /span>
• What alternative technologies/approaches are underway for the use and re-use of carbon? What peripheral industries can potentially benefit (fuels, fertilizers, products)?

Speakers:

US Department of Energy, Dr. Darren Mollot, Ph.D., Director, Office of Clean Energy Systems

US Department of Energy, Mark Ackiewicz, Program Manager, Division of Carbon Capture and Storage Research

Carbozyme, Dr. Michael C. Trachtenberg, Ph.D., CEO and CTO

HTC PureEnergy, Jeff Allison, Senior VP

Meet the Panel

Please contact kimberly.schoemaker@agrion.org for any further questions.