本文转自《Envirotec》杂志发表的题为“CCUS: An unlikely saviour?”的报道。

日期：2019.07

原文链接：https://envirotecmagazine.com/2019/07/08/ccus-an-unlikely-saviour/?tdsourcetag=s_pcqq_aiomsg

For a country like the UK, which has committed to generating net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, it appears that developing the technology of carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be “a necessity not an option,” to quote the IMechE’s Jenifer Baxter. Many others agree, and the UK has just announced a major funding commitment for the approach. But is it enough? 

对于像英国这样致力于到2050年实现净零排放的国家来说，开发碳捕集与封存技术（CCS）似乎是“必不可少的选择”，引用IMechE的Jenifer Baxter。 许多人都同意，英国刚刚宣布了该方法的主要资金承诺。 但这够了吗？

An aerial view of Drax power plant in Yorkshire, where £5 million in government funding was awarded in June to assist with scaling up a bioenergy and CCS project.

约克郡Drax电厂的鸟瞰图，6月份政府拨款500万英镑用于协助扩大生物能源和CCS项目。

CCS refers to a variety of methods that promise to allow most of the CO2 emissions from power plants and industrial facilities to be captured – rather than simply released into the atmosphere – and stored. Even better than storage is the idea of recycling it – converting it into useful products or materials, an emerging capability included within the increasingly popular acronym of CCUS (or carbon capture, usage and storage).

CCS指的是各种方法，这些方法可以捕获发电厂和工业设施的大部分二氧化碳排放 - 而不是简单地释放到大气中 - 并进行储存。 甚至比存储更好的是回收它的想法 - 将其转换成有用的产品或材料，这是一种新兴的功能，包括在日益流行的CCUS（或碳捕获，使用和存储）首字母缩略词中。

Approaches途径

Broadly, carbon capture is divided into three separate categories of method: Post-combustion CCS refers to methods for removing CO2 from the flue gas of an industrial facility or power station, perhaps using a process like passing the gas through an absorber column; pre-combustion CCS refers to processes for removing CO2 from fuel before it is combusted, and applies to methods such as coal gasification, whereby the CO of the resultant syngas is reacted with water to produce CO2, which is then stored; and the third method is ‘oxyfuel’, whereby coal, for example, is burned in an environment with a very high concentration of pure oxygen, giving rise to an exhaust gas that is almost pure CO2, and this can be condensed and stored. This third method has traditionally been more energy intensive.

概括地说，碳捕获分为三个方法：燃烧后捕集是指从工业设施或发电站的烟道气中去除CO2的方法，可能使用将气体通过吸收塔的过程；燃烧前捕集是指在燃料燃烧前从燃料中除去CO2的过程，适用于煤气化等方法，使得所得合成气的CO与水反应生成CO2，然后储存CO2；第三种方法是富氧燃烧，例如，煤在具有非常高浓度的纯氧的环境中燃烧，产生几乎纯二氧化碳的废气，并且这可以冷凝和储存。传统上，第三种方法更加耗能。

In typical installations in the oil and gas industry, the CO2 is liquified and transported – possibly up to several hundred miles – and buried, either in underground geological formations, or disused oil fields, or in saline aquifers deep underground.

在石油和天然气工业的典型案例中，二氧化碳被液化和运输 - 可能长达数百英里 - 并埋在地下地质构造，废弃油田或地下深层盐水含水层中。

One of the first ever plants was set up in 1996 at the Sleipner West oil field in Norway, which still collects about 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year – about 11 million tonnes have been collected so far, according to the website of the British Geological Survey, which studies the facility. In this case the CO2 is removed from the natural gas produced at Sleipner – a prerequisite of getting it to saleable quality anyway – which is then injected down a 3km-deep well and stored in a porous rock formation.

根据英国地质公司网站的数据，1996年在挪威的Sleipner West油田建立了有史以来第一批工厂之一，该油田每年仍然收集约100万吨二氧化碳 - 迄今已收集约1100万吨二氧化碳。在这种情况下，从Sleipner生产的天然气中除去二氧化碳 - 这是使其达到可销售质量的先决条件 - 然后将其注入3公里深的井中并储存在多孔岩层中。

Cost conundrum 成本难题

In the UK there have been various attempts by energy and petrochemicals firms to build CCS projects since the mid-2000s, but these seem to have largely stalled for funding reasons, following the closure of two government funding programmes in 2007 and 2012, which were shelved for cost reasons.

在英国，自2000年代中期以来，能源和石化公司已经进行了各种尝试来建立CCS项目，但由于资金原因，在2007年和2012年两个政府资助计划被搁置后，这些计划似乎基本停滞不前。

Indeed, concerns at the price tag of the method have also come from environmental campaigners, that it might soak up subsidies that would better be spent on techniques with a more proven track record. Also, there are concerns that CCS might undermine efforts to move away from fossil fuels.

事实上，对这种方法的价格标签的关注也来自环保运动者，它可能会获得补贴，而这些补贴最好花在具有更加成熟记录的技术上。此外，有人担心CCS可能会破坏摆脱化石燃料的努力。

But there seems a growing consensus that, for countries looking to meet ambitious emissions targets like ‘net zero emissions by 2050’, carbon capture will be indispensable. The UK government appears to be backing this view and in late June awarded £26 million of funding to nine projects deemed “essential” if the UK hopes to reach its net-zero target.

但似乎越来越多的共识认为，对于那些希望实现雄心勃勃的排放目标的国家，如“到2050年净零排放”，碳捕获将是不可或缺的。英国政府似乎支持这一观点，并且在6月底，如果英国希望达到其净零目标，则将2600万英镑的资金拨给9个被认为“必不可少”的项目。

Around £4.2 million of this fund was awarded to what it is hoped will be the UK’s largest CCUS project to date: a facility located at Tata Steel Europe’s soda ash and sodium bicarbonate manufacturing plant in Cheshire.  It will seemingly capture around 40k tonnes of CO2 per year from the flue gases of the company’s CHP plant – reducing the firm’s carbon emissions by 11%. The gas will then be liquified and purified, for use in the manufacture of sodium bicarbonate – used in products like glass, baking soda, and Pot Noodles. The project is estimated to cost £16.7 million in total, and is expected to be operational by 2021.

该基金的约420万英镑被授予了迄今为止英国最大的CCUS项目：位于Tata Steel Europe的苏打灰和柴郡碳酸氢钠生产厂。它似乎每年从公司热电联产工厂的烟气中捕获约4万吨二氧化碳 - 将公司的碳排放量减少11％。然后将气体液化并纯化，用于制造碳酸氢钠 - 用于玻璃，小苏打和锅面等产品。该项目估计总共需要1670万英镑，预计到2021年将投入运营。

The project appears to be a major step change in the UK’s ambition for CCUS, able to trap about 100 times the CO2 of an existing plant being run at Drax in Yorkshire. TSE’s Martin Ashcroft described the project as “a great example of business and government working together to rise to the challenge of decarbonising industrial production.”

该项目似乎是英国CCUS雄心壮志的一个重大改变，能够捕获大约100倍于约克郡Drax现有工厂的二氧化碳排放量。东京证券交易所的马丁阿什克罗夫特称这个项目是“商业和政府共同努力应对工业生产脱碳挑战的一个很好的例子。”

The government’s £26 million fund is being awarded in two separate streams: the Carbon Capture, Usage and Demonstration scheme, which aims to encourage industrial sites in the UK to capture CO2; and the Call for CCUS Innovation programme, which will fund projects for developing novel technology and processes that reduce the cost of CCUS.

政府的2600万英镑基金分别在两个不同的流程中授予：碳捕获，使用和示范计划，旨在鼓励英国的工业用地捕获二氧化碳，和呼吁CCUS创新计划，该计划将资助开发新技术和流程的项目，以降低CCUS的成本。

Tata’s proposed facility qualifies under the first scheme, as do a couple of projects awarded to Drax in Yorkshire. Drax has received £500k towards a fuel cell carbon capture study, which has the potential to produce power at the same time as capturing CO2. The group is also receiving £5 million jointly with C-Capture, a firm developing solvent systems for carbon capture, to go towards an £11.1 million project that seeks to scale up C-Capture’s technology for deployment at the bioenergy and CCS project at Drax power station, which began capturing CO2 at the plant this year.

塔塔的拟议设施符合第一个计划，以及约克郡Drax的几个项目。 Drax已获得50万英镑用于燃料电池碳捕获研究，该研究有可能在捕获二氧化碳的同时产生电力。该集团还与开发用于碳捕获的溶剂系统的公司C-Capture共同获得了500万英镑，用于投资1110万英镑的项目，该项目旨在扩大C-Capture的技术，以便在Drax的生物能源和CCS项目中进行部署发电站今年开始在工厂捕集二氧化碳。

Projects awarded funding under the second stream – ‘Call for CCUS Innovation’ – include a project that aims to integrate CCUS with hydrogen fuel production. Led by Progressive Energy, the Hynet project aims to help decarbonise the Northwest of England’s industrial cluster. In its first phase it will try to develop the infrastructure to allow CO2 emissions to be captured from industrial sites and stored in depleted gas fields in Liverpool Bay.

项目获得第二流资金 - “呼吁CCUS创新” - 包括一个旨在将CCUS与氢燃料生产相结合的项目。在Progressive Energy的领导下，Hynet项目旨在帮助英格兰西北部的产业集群脱碳。在第一阶段，它将尝试开发基础设施，以便从工业现场捕获二氧化碳并储存在利物浦湾的贫瘠气田中。

A long way to go 还有很长的路要走

Such projects sound promising, but is it enough? The International Energy Authority (IEA) estimates that around 6 billion tonnes of CO2 have to be stored by 2050, but there is currently very little deployment at large scale – projects that capture at least 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year. The CCC, for one, has said that CCUS technology must progress with “far greater urgency”, as the FT reported on 1 July.

这样的项目听起来很有希望，但这还够吗？ 国际能源署（IEA）估计，到2050年，大约需要储存60亿吨二氧化碳，但目前几乎没有大规模部署 - 每年至少捕获100万吨二氧化碳的项目。 正如英国“金融时报”7月1日报道的那样，CCC表示，CCUS技术必须以“更大的紧迫性”取得进展。

The Tata announcement appears to be consistent with the UK government’s CCUS action plan, produced late last year, which set out an intention for the UK’s first large scale CCUS facility to be up and running by the mid-2020s.

Tata公告似乎与英国政府去年年底制定的CCUS行动计划一致，该行动计划规定英国首个大型CCUS设施计划在2020年中期启动并运行。

The CBI issued a statement on 28 June, recommending that the government build new nuclear power stations and scale up carbon capture technology and infrastructure if it is serious about reaching the target of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. Support from the business world seems a vital ingredient.

英国工业联合会于6月28日发表声明，建议政府建设新的核电站并扩大碳捕集技术和基础设施，如果它认真到2050年达到净零温室气体排放目标的话。商业界的支持似乎是 重要的成分。