New CCS Projects – EU Funded, September 2016 Edinburgh Biannual

This blog was written by Kehinde Fayemiwo, a PhD student at Loughborough University, who received funding from the ECR Meeting Fund to attend the UKCCSRC Autumn 2016 Biannual Meeting in Edinburgh, 14-15 September.

Check out the blogs about the new NERC projects and the new EPSRC projects that also presented in the same session. 

There were two new EU Funded CCS projects reported, Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement (LEILAC) and STrategies for Enviromental Monitoring of Marine Carbon Capture and Storage (STEMM-CCS), and each was presented by John Blamey from Imperial College London and Jonathan Bull from University of Southampton, respectively.  

The first presenter, Dr Blamey who spoke on LEILAC described it as a technology solution capture for CO₂ emissions from the vital cement and the lime industries.  With the challenge that around 60% cement and limestone total CO₂ emissions are released directly, and presently, direct separation is proven at commercial level.  Thus, the output is pure CO₂ stream, 5 to 10 times more reactive product, by using the principle of retrofit or new build; thereby capture CO₂ for no energy penalty! It was said that LEILAC pilot plant efficiently capture > 95 % of CO₂ process emissions. It was concluded that LEILAC will pilot a breakthrough carbon capture technology that would enable both Europe’s cement and lime industries to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions drastically without any significant energy or capital penalty.

The second presenter, Prof Bull spoke on STEMM-CCS, EU project coordinated by National Oceanography Centre. The project aimed at developing a better understanding of fluid and gas flow in operating condition leading to efficient and economic monitoring, thus delivering new insights and guidelines for best practice. The focus is to develop a robust environmental baseline assessment method under real life conditions. The target experiments for 2017 are: 1. BGS rock drill (to sample top of chimney); 2. Tomographic imaging. The key objectives of the project are: to produce new tools and techniques for CO₂ emission and environmental monitoring, quantification and assessment, to develop new knowledge on reservoir overburden, to deliver the first CCS demonstration project level implementation, to promote knowledge transfer to industrial and regulatory stakeholders, local and international communities.

The meeting was well organised and every aspect of the meeting was motivating and exciting, and I greatly enjoyed it all. 

**Available presentations from the meeting can be found on the Edinburgh Biannual event page.**