development of carbon capture and storage plant by Mitsubishi heavy industries

 Development of CCS ( carbon capture and storage ) technology  by   Mitsubishi heavy industries( MHI) .

We expect some major high lights in the CCS technology in world this year. In  MHI especially key technology development may happen for  CCS development.

In Southern Company- MHI 500 tonnes per day CCS demonstration plant is due for start up at plant at Barry power station in Alabama in June 2011, which also includes the storage of CO2 in a deep saline formation. MHI expects a very positive impact from successful operation of this project. With Southern company will look into market  and promote this project with opportunities for external stake holders to get involved with regards to information / knowledge sharing, site visit etc.

.  On going MHI R&D programs and patent development in relation to CO2 capture to further reduce costs and
. Start up of MHI ninth commercial CO2 capture plant  first in Pakistan  expected Q2 2011.

For CCS major developments during 2011 and perspective

There were notable developments in 2010. Certainly CCS acceptance under the clean development mechanism at last UNFCCC COP meeting is an important development to incentive  CCS. MHI  also believes that CO2 EOR  will be promising as an initial commercial CCS project mover in certain oil producing nations and MHI is  correctly in discussion with various project developers in regard to their application. The development of CCS related legislation in some nation is also encouraging.

The major break thorough in broader CCS technology world wide over past one year.

MHI has made some significant in roads in the  CO2 capture world over past years in several areas including coal fired flue gas testing, the development of new energy process for CO2 capture and deployment of commercial capture plants.

The successful completion of high impurities coal fired flue gas testing at a 10 times per day demonstration plant in Japan and led to specific technical know-how concerning impact of coal fired flue gas impurities and adoption and deployment of counter measures for some of these items. This know -how has been applied to the Southern company MHI 500 tonnes per day CCS demonstration plant due for start at plant Barry power station in Alabama in June 2011. The plant will demonstrate end to end CCS from coal fired power station with opportunities to participate in knowledge gains for external parties.

MHI recently achieved significant process improvements  which can reduce the energy requirements of CO2 capture and regeneration to 603 Kcal/kg Cog 2 ( 2.53 MJ/KG-CO2 using KS-1 solvent and 583 Kcals/kg- CO2 ( 2.44 MJ/KG- CO2 for a new solvent recently tested at Nanko pilot plant. These advancements help to further reduce the overall operating costs and were presented at GHG-10 conference in Amsterdam September 2010.

The last year or so was also busy on CO2 capture plant commercial deployment front. Four new commercial capture plants featuring MHI technology commercial operation in chemical and fertilizer plant industry throughout 2009-2010. These include plants ( up to 450 tonnes per day scale) in India, Vietnam , Bahrain
And Abudhabi.

MHI  has  contracted two additional commercial CO2  capture plants due for start up in 2011( Pakistan ) and 2012 ( India ) and respective learning’s from long term operation experience gained from these plants is applied to large scale CO2 capture plant design. Al together MHI now has eight commercial CO2  capture plants in operation and further two under construction not including the U.S. 500 tonnes per day CCS demonstration plant which is soon start up.

The major regions of activity were those with existing or future  commercial opportunities, these with developing legislation and or government backed CCS demonstration initiatives. Broadly speaking they can be defined as CO2- EOR in the middle east, large scale CCS demonstration  in Europe, Australia and North America, and commercial CO2 capture plants in chemical/ fertilizer industry in Middle East  and Asia.

However CCS demonstration is not encouraging due to that  MHI feel  the deployment timing was slipped and their view several recent projects delays and cancellation and likely due to following reasons.

. Finding short fall or lack of other projects developments incentives for developers.
. Technology immaturity ( some technology suppliers don’t have appropriate levels of development or experience to successfully deploy projects which leads large risks which are not absorbed by project developers.
. Public acceptance ( we  need more work to demonstrate to the public that CCS can be deployed safely and
. Regulatory / economic- COP15 result was discouraging for global action on climate change. In addition continued uncertainty regarding pricing carbon many countries negatively impacting spending in this area . In parallel , the fallout following the global financial crises - and other regional economic concern-has negatively affected government capital spending grants and clean energy policy in many countries. This one reason Mitsubishi   heavy industries is developing a 500 tonnes per day CCS demonstration project in U.S. independent government funding- need to get successful project up and running as quickly as possible because the lessons learned will help reduce costs ensure viability and lead public acceptance of CCS technology.