International Forum on Recent Developments of CCS Implementation – Stefanie Niekamp

This blog was written by Stefanie Niekamp, a UKCCSRC Associate member from University of Surrey / TWI Ltd, who received funding from the UKCCSRC Meeting Fund to attend the International Forum on Recent Developments of CCS Implementation Leading the Way to a Low-Carbon Future which took place in Athens, March 2015.

The International Forum on Recent Development of CCS Implementation was a great event, highlighting the state of the art of CCS research and industrial development. It was held in the Athens Ledra Hotel, a beautiful venue close to the Akropolis (even though it rained a lot so we did not have the chance to see much of it).

The presentations in the general sessions covered topic areas from the whole CCS chain including combustion, capture, thermo-physical properties, transport and safety, process optimisation and techno-economic considerations as well as storage. More details about these can be found in some of the other blogs.

A number of high quality keynote speakers complemented the general sessions focussing on some of the key top-level aspects. These included updates from the EC initiatives on CCS (Dr Vassilios Kougionas, EC), comparative costing for CCS technologies (Dr Paul Fennell, ICL), a global overview of CCS implementation (Mr John Gale, IEA GHG) and the design of good transportation grids (Mr Russell Cooper, National Grid).

Moreover, a number of posters were presented throughout the event. Not only European participants presented, but there were also poster presentations from China and Japan. The posters covered a good variety of aspects from the whole CCS chain. Topics included research on the following aspects:

• Capture: Particularly on ionic liquids, cryogenic air separation for oxy-fuel combustion, and synthesis of CO₂ sorbents.
• Transport: Design of a CO₂ transport system in Greece, the effect of impurities on pipeline re-pressurisation distance, as well as compression requirements for CO₂ streams.
• Safety: Several aspects of modelling of CO₂ expansion from pipeline rupture (near and far field), comparison of numerical predictions with release datasets and the results from industrial scale release experiments,
• Storage: Investigation of microbial associated CO₂ storage
• Whole chain: Impacts of impurities and criteria for risk assessment

Additionally, I was happy that I was given the opportunity to present a poster myself on multi-criteria decision support for evaluating CCS technologies. It was great to interact with the other participants and get some useful feedback about my approach.

The organisation as well as the food were excellent and made for a very pleasant experience. I am grateful for the travel funding provided by the UK CCS Research Centre which enabled me to participate in the conference. I learned a lot about many key aspects of the CCS and had a very good time in Athens.