Targeting for optimal grid-wide deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques are considered as one of the promising approaches to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil fuel based power generation, which still accounts for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. CCS technology can be used to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, with the additional advantage that it allows continuing use reliable and inexpensive fossil fuels. However, CCS retrofit entails major capital costs as well as a reduction of overall thermal efficiency and power output. Thus, it is essential for planning purposes to implement the minimal extent of CCS retrofit while meeting the specified carbon emission limits for the power sector. At the same time, it is necessary to plan for compensatory power generation capacity to offset energy losses resulting from CCS retrofit. In this paper, an algebraic targeting technique is presented for planning of grid-wide CCS retrofits in the power generation sector with compensatory power. The targeting technique is developed based on pinch analysis. In addition, the proposed methodologies are illustrated through case studies based on grid data in India and the Philippines. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to determine the suitable CCS technology and compensatory power source which satisfy emission limits.     

Carbon dioxide pipelines: A statistical analysis of historical accidents

Carbon dioxide pipeline is an essential carrier in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). Statistically revealing the accident rate and risk of carbon dioxide pipelines is conducive to integrity management. Based on 112 accident records collected from Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, this work analyzes the frequency, rate, and risk of accidents. In addition, the impact of relevant factors on risk is further discussed. Some primary conclusions are as follows: (1) For carbon dioxide pipelines, the leak is the leading form of accident. Most carbon emissions are generated in the form of leakage, but economic losses are mainly generated in other forms. (2) The pipelines that have been in service for 0–10 years have the highest frequency of accidents and the highest proportion of carbon emissions, but the pipelines that have been in service for 11–20 years have caused the most economic losses. (3) Among the accident causes, the number of accidents caused by equipment failure is the highest, while the economic loss caused by natural force damage is the highest, and the carbon emission caused by material failure is the highest.     

Power system planning with emission constraints: Effects of CCS retrofitting

Today, the world's energy needs are still supplied mainly from fossil fuel based resources. This is true for electricity generation as well, thus making the power sector responsible for 45% of greenhouse gas emissions. The present climate crisis has made it necessary to minimise emissions in power generation, with low-carbon energy sources taking on greater significance in recent years. However, most low-carbon sources have inherent problems, like intermittency and high capital expenditure. A suitable alternative is carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology which allows continued fossil fuel-based electricity generation at much lower rates of emission. Two approaches are possible in the deployment of CCS technology. The first is to introduce new power plants equipped for carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture, while systematically shutting down existing coal power plants. Another is to retrofit existing power plants for CO₂ capture. These approaches are compared in this work. The study shows that allowing CCS retrofitting of existing power plants can reduce the overall cost requirement significantly. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is also done to study the effect of nuclear energy on the overall energy mix.     

Addressing emerging risks using carbon capture and storage as an example

The European iNTeg-Risk project is a large-scale integrated project aimed at improving the management of emerging risks related to new technologies in European industry. The project aims to build a new management paradigm for emerging risks as a set of principles supported by a common language, agreed tools and methods, and key performance indicators, all integrated into a single framework. It is using a number of Emerging Risk Representative Applications (ERRAs), or case studies, to inform the development of the framework; one of which concerns the carbon capture and storage (CCS) process.This paper describes the iNTeg-Risk CCS ERRA. Relevant hazards and properties of carbon dioxide are described and the emerging risks from CCS are discussed. Three new tools have been developed or trialled within the ERRA. These are: the DyPASI methodology for taking account of atypical (not usually identified) events during hazard identification; a methodology for including the time dimension in a risk assessment; and life-cycle approaches for risk management and communication. For CCS, the risk assessment needs to include both short-term potential accidents from capture, transport or injection, as well as very long-term risks from storage. Knowledge gaps which are generic to emerging risks are also identified.     

A comparative global assessment of potential negative emissions technologies

The paper summarises a global assessment of around 30 prospective negative emissions techniques (NETs) found in the literature. Fourteen techniques including direct air capture, BECCS, biochar, and ocean alkalinity enhancement are considered in more detail.The novel functional categorisation of NETs developed in the course of the assessment is set out and a comparative quantitative summary of the results is presented, focusing on the relative readiness, global capacity, costs and side-effects of the prospective NETs.Both technology specific and more generic potential limitations are discussed, notably those arising from energy requirements, from availability of geological storage capacity and from sustainable supply of biomass.Conclusions are drawn regarding the overall scope of NETs to contribute to safe carbon budgets, and challenges arising in the future governance of NETs, with particular reference to the potential role of carbon markets.     

Fuzzy optimization of multi-period carbon capture and storage systems with parametric uncertainties

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an important technology option for reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions. In practice, CO₂ sources are easy to characterize, while the estimation of relevant properties of storage sites, such as capacity and injection rate limit (i.e., injectivity), is subject to considerable uncertainty. Such uncertainties need to be accounted for in planning CCS deployment on a large scale for effective use of available storage sites. In particular, the uncertainty introduces technical risks that may result from overestimating the limits of given storage sites. In this work, a fuzzy mixed integer linear program (FMILP) is developed for multi-period CCS systems, accounting for the technical risk arising from uncertainties in estimates of sink parameters, while still attaining satisfactory CO₂ emissions reduction. In the model, sources are assumed to have precisely known CO₂ flow rates and operating lives, while geological sinks are characterized with imprecise fuzzy capacity and injectivity data. Three case studies are then presented to illustrate the model. Results of these examples illustrate the tradeoff inherent in planning CCS systems under parametric uncertainty.     

Reducing the risk level for pipelines transporting carbon dioxide and hydrogen by means of optimal safety valves spacing

In many countries where electricity generation is based on their natural resources of fossil fuels a need arises to implement new power engineering technologies that allow carbon dioxide capture. Simultaneously, efforts are made to find new energy carriers which, if fired, do not involve carbon dioxide emissions. Hydrogen is one of such fuels with this future potential which is now becoming increasingly popular. Obviously, this means that the two gases mentioned above – carbon dioxide and hydrogen – will be produced in large quantities in future, which in many cases will necessitate their transport over considerable distances. If a pipeline failure occurs, the transport of the gases may pose a serious hazard to people in the immediate vicinity of the leakage site. This paper presents an analysis of the possibility of reducing the level of risk related to pipelines transporting CO₂ and H₂ by means of safety valves. It is shown that for a 50 km long and a 0.4 m diameter pipeline transporting gas with the pressure of 15 MPa the individual risk level can be reduced from 1·10⁻⁴ to 6.5·10⁻⁷ for CO₂ and from 1·10⁻⁶ to 6·10⁻¹⁰ for H₂. The social risk can be diminished in similar proportions.     

Hazards from carbon dioxide capture, transport and storage

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a developing technology which raises a number of issues in terms of safety. CCS involves a chain of processes comprising capture of carbon dioxide, transport and injection into underground storage. In work carried out for the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, a number of high-level hazard identification (HAZID) studies have been performed with the help of industry experts. The HAZIDs considered a carbon capture and storage chain involving capture, pipeline transport and injection. HAZID has been performed at a high-level for such a CCS chain with three types of capture technology and using pipeline transport. It is hoped that the results of the HAZID studies will be of use to those carrying out CCS projects, but should not be a substitute for them carrying out a full suite of integrated hazard management processes. A number of example hazards have been described to raise awareness of the range of hazards in a CCS process and to identify barriers which could prevent, minimise, control or mitigate CCS hazards. Bow-tie diagrams have been produced to record the information from this study and to organise it in a systematic way so that it is far less likely that contributors to and mitigators of hazards will be missed. The diagrams are available in Excel spreadsheet format so that they can be used as the starting point for development by specific CCS projects. CCS technology is still advancing and a number of knowledge gaps in terms of safety have been identified which require further development.     

Toward an integrative approach of the industrial risk management process in France

Management in the field of environmental protection and risk prevention has evolved to the increasing participation of all stakeholders in the decision-making process. It certainly results from the development of the Information society and the global increase of knowledge of the population, combined with the concerns of the populations related to a sustainable development of our civilisation. Our ‘risk society’, following the big industrial disasters (Flixborough,Tchernobyl, Bhopal, Challenger, and more recently Toulouse), has also developed a cautious attitude towards the role of the expertise when it comes to assessing risks, along with a question of the ability of science to give definite answers.

This has lead in particular to the adoption of the Aarhus convention in 1998 and the evolution of several regulations in the developed countries. For example, in France the new law no. 2003–699 of 30 July 2003 about the ‘prevention of the technological and natural risks and to the compensation for the damages’ has introduced an important innovation into the process of technological risks prevention.

This law has enabled the involvement of the stakeholders in the decision-making process related to risk prevention and has urged the development of specific tools to deal with the complexity of risk management issues, in particular for those related to land-use planning.

As technical support to decision-makers in risk management from both public and private sectors, INERIS has played an important role for the evolution of the French risk management system.

This paper describes an analysis on the difficulty to control major accident hazards in an evolving context where the industrial systems becomes more and more complex and where the expectations of the civil society has increased. Then, the authors describe how an integrated vision for industrial risk management has emerged in France and is being implemented in a new law adopted after the Toulouse disaster.     

Occupational health and safety in the framework of corporate social responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined as the voluntary integration of social and environmental concerns into the firm’s decision-making. The search for a good Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) environment and the promotion of a culture of risk prevention are two of the firm’s main social responsibilities, and consequently an integral part of CSR. This paper discusses how the growing interest in corporate social responsibility can contribute to improving the implementation of adequate systems of prevention. For this purpose, we study to what extent OHS issues are present in the field of CSR, and consequently determine which aspects have received the most attention, and which are less well developed; we offer some proposals as well. The methodology followed is a content analysis of the main international CSR management tools.     

High-level techno-economic assessment of negative emissions technologies

This paper presents results from research conducted to provide a high level techno-economic and performance assessments of various emerging technologies for capturing CO₂ from the air, directly and indirectly, on a life-cycle basis. The technologies assessed include ‘artificial trees’, the soda lime process, augmented ocean disposal, biochar and bio-energy with carbon capture and storage.These technologies are subjected to quantitative and qualitative analyses, based on the most recent peer reviewed data in the literature, to identify their potential performance as well as the technical and non-technical barriers to their adoption and scale up. Key findings for each technology are presented which seek to highlight the state of technological development and research needs, the anticipated life cycle capture cost in $/tCO₂ based on their potential to deliver a 0.1 ppm CO₂ reduction per annum, policy requirements for scale up and, in light of these findings, the likely role that they will play in addressing climate change and broader environmental issues in the medium to long term.The key finding from the work is that the degree of scale-up required for negative emissions technologies to have a material impact on atmospheric emissions (i.e. at a ppm level) is probably unrealistic in less than 20 years. Therefore, emissions prevention efforts should remain the main focus in addressing climate change and the likely role for negative emissions technologies will be in augmenting a suite of mitigation measures targeting economically or practically difficult emissions.     

Thermodynamics,economics and systems thinking: What role for air capture of CO2?

Air capture has recently been advanced by several parties as a solution to the problem of constraining – and ultimately reducing – atmospheric CO₂ in response to climate change. However, there are significant barriers pertaining to scale, energy needs and cost, which will hugely challenge the effectiveness and practicality of air capture. This paper examines the thermodynamics, energetics and economics and politics of air capture. These compare unfavourably with alternative approaches to atmospheric greenhouse gas reduction. An analysis is made of the energy cost of the one favoured DAC technology for which experimental results are available in the open literature – temperature/vacuum swing adsorption, and of one point source capture technology – oxyfiring of refinery FCCUs. We also examine the engineering effort required to implement atmospheric capture on a scale at which it could significantly reduce atmospheric levels of CO₂; and questions are addressed regarding its practicability and appropriateness. The analysis demonstrates that air capture remains at best a peripheral activity, at worst a distraction, until point sources of greenhouse gas emissions such as power stations, industrial flue gases, shale gas wellheads, anaerobic digestion plants and landfill sites have been completely decarbonised. When these and so many other unaddressed factors are affecting our global climate, the pursuit air capture, the ultimate “end-of-pipe” solution, is inappropriate.     

Safety evaluation of leak in a storage tank using fault tree analysis and risk matrix analysis

The work presented in this paper used a quantitative analysis of relevant risks through the development of fault tree analysis and risk analysis methods to aid real time risk prediction and safety evaluation of leak in a storage tank. Criticality of risk elements and their attributes can be used with real time data to predict potential failures likely to occur. As an example, a risk matrix was used to rank risk of events that could lead to a leak in a storage tank and to make decisions on risks to be allowed based on past statistical data. An intelligent system that recognizes increasing level(s) and draws awareness to the possibility of additional increase before unsafe levels are attained was used to analyse and make critical decisions. After a visual depiction of relationships between hazards and controls had been actualized, dynamic risk modelling was used to quantify the effect controls can potentially have on hazards by applying historical and real-time data into a probabilistic model. The output of a dynamic risk model is near real-time quantitative predictions of risk likelihood. Results from the risk matrix analysis method mixed with RTD and FTA were analyzed, evaluated, and compared.     

应对气候变化——二氧化碳捕集与封存

全球气候变化问题日益严重,CO2捕集与封存(CCS)技术被看作是最有发展前景的解决该问题的技术之一。CCS技术主要包括3个环节:CO2捕集,运输和封存。首先介绍了CO2捕集技术,该技术按工艺主要分为燃烧前捕集、富氧燃烧捕集、燃烧后捕集和化学链燃烧捕集。随后介绍了CO2封存技术,该技术按封存地点可分为地质封存和海洋封存。在众多的CO2封存技术中,CO2强化采油技术由于其较高的经济效益近年来得到广泛应用。从国外、国内两个层面详细介绍了该技术的发展情况。     

Significant human risk factors in aircraft maintenance technicians

We examined significant human risk factors in aircraft maintenance technicians (AMTs) in the airline industry. We conducted an empirical study of Taiwan’s airlines to determine these risk factors and to illustrate how a quantifiable evaluation approach integrates experts’ opinions about the relative importance of risk factors. We developed an expert questionnaire and modified the human factors SHELL model to categorize the risk factors that we derived from the literature and the opinions of 107 senior experts. The empirical results showed that there are nine significant risk factors out of 77 preliminary and 46 primary risk factors. The results also provided support for the approach and model presented in this work, demonstrating that they are both strategically effective and practically acceptable. Analyzing and ranking the significant risk factors for AMTs in this fashion may help airlines to better focus on their major operational and managerial weaknesses in order to improve maintenance operations under the condition of limited resources.     

Measuring safety climate: identifying the common features

In UK industry, particularly in the energy sector, there has been a movement away from ‘lagging’ measures of safety based on retrospective data, such as lost time accidents and incidents, towards ‘leading’ or predictive assessments of the safety climate of the organisation or worksite. A number of different instruments have been developed by industrial psychologists for this purpose, resulting in a proliferation of scales with distinct developmental histories. Reviewing the methods and results from a sample of industrial surveys, the thematic basis of 18 scales used to assess safety climate is examined. This suggests that the most typically assessed dimensions relate to management (72% of studies), the safety system (67%), and risk (67%), in addition themes relating to work pressure and competence appear in a third of the studies.     

Making sense of invulnerability at work—a qualitative study of police drivers

This paper reports a qualitative study of 54 police drivers who were interviewed about their views on police driver training, driving strategies and their accident involvement. Study of the transcribed interviews indicated that officers constructed narratives of themselves as being highly aware of hazards presented by other road users and they used a variety of discursive devices to minimise their own culpability and attribute risk elsewhere. Rather than maintaining a straightforward ‘illusion of invulnerability’ they were formulating a ‘topography of risk’ in which they were responding to hazards presented by suspects or other road users. Their meticulously detailed accounts of the circumstances surrounding accidents serve to place them as knowledgeable and impartial participants and create a sense of expertise and authority. Training initiatives could profitably seek to challenge this ‘topography of risk’ and sense of authority so that drivers more fully appreciate the hazard they may present to themselves and the public.     

Environmental stewardship—What does it mean?

Human activities have impacted the environment since the first toolmakers learned to make fire. As the human population has grown and changed, so has our impact on the environment. Currently the world's population is estimated at 6–7 billion, and that number of people, along with the billions of domesticated animals, and their activities, are large enough to have major global and regional impacts. Climate change, declining fish populations in the oceans, and ever decreasing ranges for “wild” ecosystems are the most obvious impacts. Other impacts may be surprising to many people, especially those impacts that are regional and not raised to the level of international concern.This paper will take a very high level look at a number of global, regional and local human interactions with the environment, and how mitigating those impacts requires a very broad and multi-disciplinary response. Examples will focus on water, carbon and energy, all of which are needed for life, as we know it, to exist. Stewardship will be shown to involve determination and monitoring of many key indicators and environmental processes, followed by the tough decisions on how to steward those processes to maintain a healthy environment for all the planet's inhabitants. Stewardship is not easy, and there are few cases where solutions can be neatly divided into good or bad, positive or negative.     

A risk-estimation methodological framework using quantitative assessment techniques and real accidents’ data: Application in an aluminum extrusion industry

The risk estimation presumably is the most crucial part of the entire procedure of assessing hazards/unsafe situations in the work, and especially in the industries’ and constructions’ worksites, where the working conditions are unstable. We can consider the risk as a quantity, which can be estimated and expressed by a mathematical relation, under the help of real accidents’ data. The aim of this work is quadruplicate: (a) the development, elaboration and explanation of two new quantitative risk-assessment techniques, (b) the improvement of specific points of other scientific works, as far as concerns quantitative risk estimation, (c) the application of these techniques on an industrial productive procedure (as a case study) and (d) the comparison of their outcome risk-estimation results. Particularly, we develop and analyze the theoretical background of the two techniques, which we call as “proportional technique” and “decision matrix technique”, and apply them on an aluminum extrusion industry's worksite, which is situated in Greece, by using real data of potential sources of hazards, recorded by safety managers, during the 5.5-year time period of 1999–2004. Comparing the results of the two quantitative risk-assessment techniques, we infer that they are compatible. Therefore, the most important hazard source in the aluminum industry is the “squeezing and hits by dropping objects (transported by derricks)”, and imposes that immediate suppressive measures must be taken place to abolish the danger source.     

盐穴地下储气库事故统计及风险分析

借鉴输气管道和二氧化碳地下封存设施的风险评价方法,结合盐穴地下储气库的事故统计分析,对储气库系统中的潜在风险因素进行12大类、35小类的初步分类,并归纳总结了盐穴地下储气库的3种主要事故类型。采用事故树分析的风险评价方法,对13种主要风险因素进行风险识别。在此基础上,提出定量风险评价的重要工程模型,其包括气体水合物模型、盐穴稳定性评价模型以及气体泄漏模型。该风险分析方法和工程模型有助于定量评价盐穴地下储气库的主要风险因素,为储库的安全稳定运行提供了科学依据。