Enel "astonished" by clean-coal project ruling
19 May 2011
Rome – Enel has expressed “astonishment” at a ruling voiding an Italian environment ministry approval for a project to convert its oil-fired Porto Tolle power plant to clean coal.
According to Enel, the decision by Italy’s Council of State threatens a project of great importance for the security of the country’s energy supplies and that could reduce energy costs in the country.
Enel’s proposed Euro2.5-billion investment at Porto Tolle envisaged creating more than 3,000 jobs over the five years of construction. The plan had, however, been the target of Greenpeace protests as part of its anti-coal agenda in Europe.
According to Enel, the initiative would have made a major contribution to protecting the environment, using advanced technologies to abate emissions of flue gas and pollutants.
With construction scheduled to start by the end of this year, Enel had qualified 400 companies and held 52 tenders for some Euro1.8-billion in contracts, about 70% of the total investment.
This decision also blocks the construction of the first industrial-scale carbon dioxide capture and storage system in Europe. The plant, said Enel, would have involved the investment of Euro1 billion, and created hundreds of new jobs.
Porto Tolle was one of six CCS demostration projects awarded funding under the European Commission’s Euro1-billion EEPR ( European Energy Programme for Recovery) fund. The other projects are at: Belchatow (Poland); Compostilla, Spain (also Enel)); Hatfield, UK; Jänschwalde, Germany; and Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
“In compliance with the law, Enel intends to safeguard its interests and the work of so many people and companies,” the group said. “Accordingly, we will be assessing what steps need to be taken in order to put the Porto Tolle project and those at other Italian sites back on track.
“If necessary, we will reluctantly be forced to shift those investments towards other countries interconnected with Italy.”
Port Tolle CCS proposal
The Port Tolle project aims to demonstrate the entire carbon capture-transport-injection chain. It includes a facility for post-combustion capture - recently inaugurated in Brindisi - with a capacity of 10,000 cubic metres per hour of treated gases. This industrial-scale plant will treat flue gases corresponding to 250 MW electrical output, producing 1 million tons of CO2 per year.
Also in Brindisi a liquefaction cryogenic storage system and a test pipeline for carbon transport will be installed. This way, the captured CO2 will be compressed to a liquid state and then transported to the storage site.
The latter is to be near Piacenza, following an agreement between Enel and Eni, which provides for the secure injection of part of the carbon dioxide captured at Brindisi in the Stogit exhausted gas field at Cortemaggiore.
The efficiency of geological storage depends on a combination of physical and geochemical trapping mechanisms. In fact, the CO2 is trapped below a thick layer that cannot be permeated by gases (and therefore by carbon dioxide) and that, over time, tends to dissolve in the existing fluids and to turn into solid minerals.
Different carbon storage techniques include oil and exhausted gas fields (Enhanced Oil / Gas Recovery); oil and natural gas extraction fields (Enhanced Gas Recovery) coal beds that cannot be used for extraction (Enhanced Coal Bed Recovery - ECBM), and finally, saline aquifers, both on and offshore.
Enel plans to use deep saline aquifers for final storage, since Italy has a significant potential for this type of storage. In order to perform a detailed assessment of the potential around the Porto Tolle demonstration site, experimental studies are underway to select saline aquifers within 200km from the plant, with basins having a depth between 800 and 2000 metres.
These studies are being conducted jointly with Italian geophysical research institutes (including OGS, INGV and ERSE).
