EU-wide carbon capture project

A four-year carbon sequestration project backed by 30 European universities and energy companies will test the viability of CO₂ capture as a means of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Castor project (CO₂ from Capture to Storage), launched on 15 March, is located at a power station, near Esbjerg, Denmark.

Castor, claimed to be the world’s first installation to capture CO₂ from flue gases of a coal-fired station, has a budget of €15.8 million (?11 million), half of which will come from the European Union. Imperial College London, UK, is among the participating institutions.

According to the station’s operator, the Danish energy company Elsam, flue gases are diverted to an absorber where a solvent captures up to 90 per cent of the CO₂. Other components of the flue gases with less affinity with the solvent - notably nitrogen - are discharged.

The CO₂-rich solvent is fed into a regenerator and heated to 120 degrees Celsius, breaking the bonds between the CO₂ and the solvent. The CO₂ is stored, and the solvent, restored to its initial, CO₂-poor form, is reinjected into the absorber.

Members of the amine family are favoured as solvents because they are effective at atmospheric pressure and resistant to corrosion. The reference solvent will be monoethanolamine (MEA).

Castor’s backers claim that carbon capture at large combustion plants could reduce Europe’s CO₂ emissions by 10 per cent.

Project managers estimate that the system could capture CO₂  at a rate of one tonne per hour: a scale at which credible extrapolations could be made regarding the theoretical efficiency of even bigger installations. 

As for putting the captured CO₂ to good use, Shell and the Norwegian oil producer Statoil have announced their own project to capture CO₂ at a new gas-fired power station in central Norway. The gas will be injected into oil-bearing strata beneath the North Sea, facilitating extraction and extending the life of oilfields by several years. 
Arthur Rogers