International

Construction work has resumed at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam facility in southeast Saskatchewan, Canada, after an asbestos discovery had stalled retrofit work there for several weeks. 

Carbon trading markets across the world are at risk of being exploited by criminals, according to the international police organization Interpol. 

The Linde Group has snagged a contract to build a carbon capture and utilization plant in Saudi Arabia, the German engineering and industrial gas firm confirmed late this week. 

The Alberta government needs to do more to clarify the regulatory process surrounding the oversight of carbon capture and storage projects, particularly related to the responsibilities of regulators and the permitting, reporting, monitoring and post-closure requirements for proposed ventures, a draft report commissioned by the province states. 

Some carbon capture and storage advocates are expressing hope that conclusions from a recently leaked draft assessment from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could spur government action to incentivize CCS and other clean energy technologies. 

Environmental groups and a handful of members of the EU Parliament are alleging that 1.8 GW of new coal capacity in Poland is “illegal” because it skirts European Union carbon capture and storage laws. 

President Barack Obama signed a pair of agreements with the G-20 countries and China late last week aimed at paring down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons. 

The Chinese government announced major plans to slash coal use in three major cities this week in a bid to curtail the country’s notoriously bad air pollution. 

Australians decisively elected the anti-carbon tax Liberal Party into office last weekend, handing a swift defeat to the Labor Party-led coalition government that championed the fee’s creation more than a year ago.

Carbon capture and storage supporters said they are hopeful that a new government set to take power in Norway next month will be just as supportive of the technology as its predecessor administration, which likened the opening of the Scandinavian country’s first demonstration project to its “moon landing.” 

Officials from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program and the operators of the Norwegian carbon capture test center at Mongstad are in early talks to develop some sort of testing partnership, according to Gassnova’s top official. 

The Chinese government will soon introduce a carbon fee as part of a suite of new environmental tax policies, state media reported this week. 

A series of reports published this week by Canadian broadcaster CBC News suggest a conflict of interest related to a contract signed by the nonprofit International Performance Assessment Centre for the Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide (IPAC-CO2) in its early days of operation and then-leaders Malcolm Wilson and Ian Bailey. 

Saskatchewan’s top government official said this week that the province may not renew funding for a prominent carbon sequestration-focused nonprofit there. 

SaskPower took Unit 3 of its Boundary Dam Power Station offline Feb. 25 in order to retrofit the power generating unit for its flagship 110 MW carbon capture and storage demonstration project. 

The Alberta Government announced Feb. 25 that it is discontinuing its $285 million funding agreement for its Swan Hills project, putting the brakes on the second carbon capture and storage project in the province this year. 

A Chinese government official this week walked back information from recent state media reports that said the government would soon implement a modest carbon tax on the country’s major emitters. 

The U.K. government announced this week that a natural gas retrofit and a new-build oxy-combustion project are the two “preferred bidders” in its national carbon capture and storage commercialization program. 

A prominent carbon sequestration-focused nonprofit based in Saskatchewan will be closing its doors this weekend after five years of operation. 

A white paper released this week by the European Union’s executive arm acknowledges that the policies currently in place to drive investment in carbon capture and storage are not doing enough to spur development in the 27-nation bloc. 

The European Commission launched the second round of its clean energy funding competition this week, calling on the European Union’s 27 member states to submit bids for carbon capture and storage and “innovative renewables” projects to receive funding. 

The utility PGE Group confirmed this week that it has pulled the plug on Poland’s only planned carbon capture and storage project after it failed to receive money in the first round of the European Commission’s clean energy funding competition. 

The U.S. and China vowed to work together to accelerate efforts to address climate change over the weekend, jointly releasing some of their strongest language yet about the need to elevate the issue as a high priority moving forward. 

Summit Power Group continues to hold onto its hope of building a carbon capture and storage project in Scotland even if it does not net demonstration funding from the U.K. government, the company’s CEO said this week. 

The head of the International Energy Agency’s carbon capture and storage office will preview the research organization’s updated CCS technology roadmap next week, which will express even more of an urgent call to deploy the technology.

Canada’s carbon capture and storage industry has experienced a tectonic shift over the last year, emerging in mid-2013 with three large-scale demonstration projects moving forward and under construction. But while the country has rapidly moved ahead as arguably the world’s leader in the technology space, some observers have pointed out that the country has few regulatory or policy incentives in place to transition the CCS industry beyond its first-generation demonstration phase, leaving Canada’s status as a technology innovator in jeopardy. 

The best way to accelerate carbon capture and storage deployment in Europe is through the creation of a tradable certificate system, Paal Frisvold, chairman of the environmental group Bellona Europa, said in a speech here at the 12th Annual Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration Conference this week. 

U.S. and Indian energy authorities laid the groundwork last week for future collaborations on carbon capture and storage efforts. 

While the United Nations’ climate chief expressed hope this week that countries like the U.S. will reach their non-binding emissions reduction commitments, she emphasized that current pledges are not enough to mitigate extreme global temperature rise. 

The European Union’s central bank said this week that it has finished selling its first batch of CO2 allowances on the region’s emissions trading market to help fund its carbon capture and storage and renewables competition. However, as expected, early estimates are predicting that the auctions have earned a fraction of the money that policymakers had initially anticipated.