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Testing area of Tomakomai for the storage of 300 000 tonnes of CO2 by 2020

The site aims to show CCS can work for industrial use

Japan CCS said 1 million T / year simulation shows the method is viable

Aaron Sheldrick

TOMAKOMAI, Japan, April 19 (Reuters) – a Test site in Japan to bury carbon dioxide (CO2) under the seabed off Hokkaido island is showing more promise than other carbon emissions, capture and storage (CCS) projects by cutting costs and improving efficiency, its developer Says.

While the $300 million site at the port of Tomakomai represents a small fraction of the $20 billion invested in CCS, it has the potential to ease CO2 emissions in industries such as gas processing and cement and chemical manufacturing.

Most investments in CCS have focused on carbon capture from power plants powered by coal and other fossil fuels – the largest source of CO2 emissions – but there have been big setbacks and some projects have been cancelled.

“Tomakomai is an exciting event. Progress on CCS has been too slow and projects like this are very encouraging, ” said Graham Winkelman, climate change lead at BHP.

BHP is the world’s largest exporter of coal for steel-making, a fuel and industry often marked as big sources of climate-warming emissions.

During an exclusive tour of the Tomakomai test site, developers told Reuters they had cut energy costs by as much as two-thirds compared to other projects and improved CO2 collection efficiency.

Those claims have yet to be tested commercially but the project operated by Japan CCS – owned by Japan Petroleum Exploration, Mitsubishi Corp, JXTG Holdings and more than 30 other companies – looks promising.

By contrast, Southern Co’s Kemper power plant in the United States was supposed to use CCS in an attempt to get clean energy from coal, but was abandoned after billions of dollars of investment.

Chevron Corp has also delayed the world’s largest CO2 injection operation in Australia, spending 2.5 billion Australian dollars ($2 billion) on a project at the Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant, which itself has faced many challenges.

CCS involves separating CO2 from other materials and gases and injecting it underground to prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere or to use it to create pressure to push oil to the surface as wells deplete.

At Tomakomai, the byproduct gas is piped from the nearby Idemitsu Kosan refinery and CO2 is excreted as it passes through the amine solution. By using the remaining gases to generate electricity and process heat, energy costs are reduced to between 1/2 and 1/3 of a typical production plant, the company said.

When Reuters visited the facility, the meter showed 150,000 tons of CO2 had been injected, halfway to the project’s target of 300,000 tons. The project on injections is calculated till 2020, the decision on commercial activity isn’t made yet.

When asked about the spending, officials declined to release government figures. Japan CCS has run simulations scaling the site to handle 1 million tons per year, and they show that it can make commercial sense, said Chiyoko Suzuki, Manager of international relations at Japan CCS, during the visit.

Australia’s CarbonNet, looking at a similar type of CCS project, last year estimated the cost of compressing, transporting and dumping carbon dioxide from gas processing, fertiliser production and hydrogen production at A$30 ($23.41) per tonne.

Suzuki said it did not know the details of CarbonNet so could not make a decision.

CCS will need to cut 14 percent of emissions, which must be cut by 2060, to limit the global rise in average temperatures to less than 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), the International energy Agency says.

(1 $ 1.2817 Australian dollars)

Reporting By Aaron Sheldrick; Editing By Tom Hogue

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