$3 Billion North Sea carbon capture, storage network planned
The scale and overall scope of the CCS concept has now been upped by the plans of the United Kingdom's National Grid plc to launch a new business entity, National Grid Carbon (NGC), which will create a pipeline network to carry carbon emissions from UK power stations for storage in the geological formations of old North Sea gas fields.
The permeable rock formations, from which all of the original gas has been pumped, are ideally suited for permanent carbon storage. National Grid plans to use existing pipelines and infrastructure in the North Sea, which was formerly used to transport natural gas, wherever possible.
National Grid's director of network operations, Chris Train, told The Times (UK) that plans were being developed for a $3 billion carbon-transport and storage network around the Humber estuary in Yorkshire. Emissions from five of the UK's largest coal- and gas-fired power stations located in the region could feed into the network.
Industrial plants, including refinery and chemical complexes, are sited around the Humber estuary, emitting around 60 million tons of carbon dioxide per year and giving the region the dubious honor of being the largest carbon-dioxide emitter in Europe.
Train said that National Grid's pipeline network would provide the gathering system to collect the carbon and then pump and store it offshore. He added that the company's expertise lay in running safe and effective pipeline networks, making the NGC scheme was a good corporate fit. National Grid believes that NGC could play a major role in the company's long term growth by serving UK power plants fitted with CCS equipment.
The CCS system could be operational by 2012 which would meet the government's deadline of 2012 for the first operational, commercial scale CCS-equipped power plant. National Grid, operator of the UK's high voltage power transmission and gas distribution networks, is planning long term investment in NGC, which could amount to billions of more dollars.
A technical team from National Grid is working with a unit at Newcastle University to study methods of storing and moving carbon by pipe, and a commercial development business team is examining ways in which NGC could be structured and financed.
National Grid is reported to be talking to major power generators in the Humber region including E.ON AG, Drax Group plc and Scottish and Southern Energy plc and the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward. The plan could provide a model to replicate the scheme elsewhere in UK regions such as Scotland and East Anglia, where there are concentrations of coal-fired power stations.
Related News

Japan to host one of world's largest biomass power plants
TOKYO - Power supplier eRex will build its largest biomass power plant to date in Japan, hoping the facility's scale will provide healthy margins and a means of skipping the government's feed-in tariff program.
The Tokyo-based electric company is in the process of selecting a location, most likely in eastern Japan. It aims to open the plant around 2024 or 2025 following a feasibility study. The facility will cost an estimated 90 billion yen ($812 million) or so, and have an output of 300 megawatts -- enough to supply about 700,000 households. ERex may work with a regional utility or other…