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A promise stands at the entrance: "Catching Our Future" reads theslogan Tore Amundsen hurries past. Still, it doesn't exactly smell like a clean future here inMongstad, on the west coast of Norway, where a sweet-and-sour odorfills the air. "That comes from the refinery over there," saysAmundsen, pointing to a spitting gas flare. "After all, we're inEurope's second-largest crude-oil port here," he addsapologetically as he shuts his helmet's visor. Amundsen is headed for a part of the stinking refinery shelteredfrom the wind, where two towers surrounded by a maze of pipes jutinto the sky. "This is where we're capturing the future," he says. At thismoment, he is so proud that he abandons his typical Scandinavianrestraint. He raves about the plant, calling it "a one-of-a-kindfacility worldwide." Amundsen is the director of the CO 2 Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM). The plant will filter out 85percent of the climate-damaging carbon dioxide from the emissionsof the adjacent gas-fired power plant and refinery. After that,plans call for the CO 2 to be permanently stored in gas caverns. The process, known ascarbon capture and storage (CCS), has never been tested on such alarge scale. A Small Gain in a Big Battle On Monday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and EuropeanCommissioner for Energy G ther Oettinger attended the officialinauguration of the new CCS plant. Stoltenberg has characterizedthe plant as a milestone on the road to a climate-friendly future,calling the project "Norway's moon landing." Of course, this is a slight exaggeration. Saving the global climatefrom the warming effect of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is amassive task. It gushes from steel mills, cement factories andchemical plants. But the most damaging thing to the climate ismankind's thirst for cheap energy. "Climate-friendly wind and solarenergy won't be enough," says Amundsen. Statistics compiled by theInternational Energy Agency (IEA) back his assertion: In Chinaalone, the amount of electricity produced by burning coal hasincreased six-fold over the last 20 years. At the same time, scientists note with some urgency that totalgreenhouse-gas emissions must be cut in half by 2050 from their1990 level. This, they say, is the only way to stabilize theaverage global temperature at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degreesFahrenheit) above current values. Amundsen believes that thetechnology in his plant can help the world solve this dilemma. It's no accident that the CCS plant is located in Norway. There,scientists already envision a transcontinental circulation system.In their model, future pipelines could pump carbon dioxide fromCentral Europe to Norway's fjords, where it would help forcenatural gas out of underground deposits. The gas, in turn, wouldthen be piped to gas-fired power plants in Germany. It was theappeal of this vision that prompted the Norwegian government toinvest almost €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in the Mongstad testplant. Other countries are also looking into ways to achieve anemissions-free future. One of the Persian Gulf states is currentlyplanning to build a 700-megawatt gas-fired power plant outfittedwith CCS technology. And China is investing billions in a pilotplant that will use coal to produce hydrogen, which in turn will beburned to generate electricity, thereby making it possible tocapture the carbon dioxide before combustion. A Controversial Technology But as promising as this all sounds, carbon-capture techniques arecontroversial, especially in Germany. Climate activists fear thatenergy companies merely want to use them to keep their oldcoal-fired plants in operation and obstruct other projects usingrenewable energies. Ecologists warn that the carbon dioxide couldleak from underground storage sites. And politicians are afraid ofcitizen opposition. A bill designed to promote CCS technology in Germany failed lastyear, prompting Vattenfall, the Swedish energy giant, to furiouslyscrap its plans for a 300-megawatt pilot power plant in the easternstate of Brandenburg. The search for permanent disposal sites haspractically ground to a halt. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted an energy summit at theChancellery last week, she mentioned CCS only once -- as acautionary tale of how politics can torpedo climate-protectiontechnologies. Amundsen, the TCM's director, is undeterred by the opposition tohis plant. "The realities will soon convince politicians," he says. The Process and the Costs Amundsen is already focusing on the plant's first test runs. "Wecan take readings at more than 100 locations," he explains. Indeed,whether it has to do with measuring the gas's composition, volumeor conductivity, testing equipment monitors the complex cleaningprocedure at every step along the way. Two different processes are installed at the site in order todetermine which is more effective in actual practice. Bothprocesses employ a washing fluid, one containing ammonia and theother amines. While emissions bubble up the 60-meter (200-foot)tower using the amine process, they are forced through tiny holesin plates containing flowing washing fluid. The amines react withand absorb the carbon dioxide contained in the emissions. Then themixture flows into another tower, where steam hisses through theliquid and removes the carbon dioxide so that it can be liquefiedand moved into final storage. "However," Amundsen admits, "all of these processes consume a greatdeal of energy." Indeed, critics say this is the true Achilles' heel of CCStechnology, and even Amundsen has no illusions about it. "In a gaspower plant, we lose about 8 percent efficiency," he says, pursinghis lips. "That would make the cost of electricity about 30 to 40percent greater than it is now." Amundsen hopes his engineers will be able to bring down the energyconsumption of the CO 2 -filtering technology even further. For example, power-plantengineers at the German engineering giant Siemens have developed apromising method using a new and supposedly more effective washingsubstance, which could soon be tested in a third facility atMongstad. This new method might enable the engineers to cut energy losses inhalf. "But, at some point," Amundsen says, "we'll inevitably run upagainst physical limitations." Is CCS Worth the Extra Cost? One can also ask whether CCS technology is even worthwhile forenergy companies. As part of the emissions trading scheme, theycurrently have to pay about €7 per metric ton of emittedcarbon dioxide. But this price is too low to make CCS worthwhile.Another key factor is the rapidly falling costs of generatingrenewable energy. Wind energy, in particular, is probably alreadycheaper today than coal- or gas-fired power plants outfitted withCCS technology. Felix Matthes, an energy expert at the Berlin branch of theInstitute for Applied Ecology, says that this is why no Germanelectricity producer has been willing to touch the new process. Nevertheless, Matthes is critical of German politicians for givingup on the development of large-scale CCS technology, such as thatemployed at the TCM plant in Norway. In fact, Matthes says there isno alternative but to use CCS for emissions from steel mills andcement factories, adding that CCS critics "have no ideas for howemissions could be reduced." In any case, the IEA has calculatedthat almost 20 percent of the CO 2 reduction needed worldwide would have to be achieved through CCStechnology if its implementation is to be relativelycost-efficient. Opportunities and Optimism Still, Matthes goes even further. In the end, he says, it wouldeven be possible to extract carbon dioxide from the Earth'satmosphere by using the CCS technology elsewhere, such as inwood-pellet power plants. After all, he says, trees alsoincorporate carbon from the atmosphere into their wood as theygrow. "By burning it, capturing it and storing it underground, wereduce the concentration of the greenhouse gas in the Earth'satmosphere," Matthes says. Amundsen, the TCM's director, is pleased to hear such argumentscoming from climate-protection activists. In Norway, skepticismamong many experts led to less research funding than he hadinitially hoped for, which in turn caused the completion of theMongstad plant to be postponed several times. But Amundsen is optimistic about the future. "Once a product hasbeen introduced into the market, development goes forward veryquickly," he says. As an example, he cites developments with cell phones. In 1988,when a former employer bought him his first one, it weighed 10kilograms (22 pounds). "And now look at this," he says, pulling hissmartphone out of the pocket of his overalls. I am an expert from acrylic-displaycase.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Acrylic Calendar Holder , Acrylic Display Case Manufacturer, Acrylic Display Case,and more.
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