Total commissions Europe's first 'end-to-end' carbon capture and storage plant
11 Jan 2010
Paris - Total has inaugurated Europe’s first end-to-end carbon capture, transportation and storage demonstration facility, in Lacq, southwestern France, the company announced 11 Jan. This technology, it said, will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities that use fuel oil, natural gas and coal, such as power plants, steel plants, cement plants and refineries.
The Euro60-million facility uses an oxycombustion carbon capture technology developed by Air Liquide. Pure oxygen is substituted for air in an industrial boiler to produce smaller amounts of flue gas that is 90% carbon. The carbon is piped 27 kilometers from the Lacq plant to the Rousse geological storage site, where it is injected into a depleted natural gas reservoir located 4,500 meters belowground.
Over the next two years, around 120,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide will be captured and stored, equivalent to the amount that would be emitted by 40,000 cars over the same period. Monitoring will continue for three years after the two-year carbon injection period, said a Total statement.
