Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
10/17/2014
AUSTIN, Texas – Through the adoption of new polices, support of carbon capture and storage projects and a commitment to global cooperation, China continues to make progress toward the deployment of CCS technology, Xu Shishen, Chief Engineer with the China Huaneng Group Clean Energy Research Institute, said during a presentation at the International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Technologies, held here last week. While providing an overview of current developments in the country, Shishen also noted a focus on maintaining momentum. “We think the next step in the near future [is that] we must improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of the CO2 capture and utilization and storage. We also think that international cooperation will be very important for the CCS development and deployment,” he said.
Recent national policy decisions support the nation’s interest in the development of CCS, Shishen said. “There are many new policies in China. President Xi launched an energy revolution recently in China that [included] energy supply and energy consumption and energy technology and [the] energy system,” he said. “Last month the ‘National Program for Mitigating Climate Change’ from this year to 2020 was approved by [the] government and CO2 emissions [per GDP] in 2020 will be reduced 40-45 percent,” from 2005 levels, Shishen said.
Shishen also noted that the National Energy Administration announced “The Upgrade Program for Coal Fired Power Plant” last month. The goal of the program, Shishen explained, is to reduce the average coal consumption for new coal-fired power plants to less than 300g/kWh and for existing plants to below 310g/kWh in 2020. Under the new program, coal consumption in China will account for 62 percent of total energy consumption in the country. “This is a big task,” Shishen said. In 2011, coal accounted for 69 percent of energy consumption in the country
CCS Projects Moving Forward
The GreenGen coal-fired CCS project, located in Tianjin City, Bohai Rim, China, is proceeding well, Shishen said. “There are three phases to do [the] zero emission power plant. The first phase [is] to be able to handle the [first Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle] IGCC in China. The first phase has at this time been finished,” Shishen said. “Our second stage will do the pre-combustion CO2 capture test.”
The current stage of the GreenGen plant places a focus on research and development. The IGCC portion of the plant developed in the first stage of the project will be studied and improved, fuel cell power generation technology will be explored and research will be conducted into the carbon capture and storage portion of the plant. In the third and final stage of the project, the CCS portion of the plant will be built and operated. The final stage is due to be completed in 2020, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology fact sheet.
