Political ineptitude has not diluted enthusiasm to be first in the market

Doosan Power Systems are beginning to make the prospect of carbon capture and storage seem not quite as far off

Progress in the nascent carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry is relative – rather than engineers building plant, for the most part the industry talks about which projects might win funding competitions first.

However, there are exceptions which, despite much political procrastinating, are taking real steps forward. Doosan Power Systems’ Oxycoal clean combustion demonstrator and its post-combustion carbon capture (PCCC) test facility in Renfrew, Scotland, are  beginning to make the prospect of carbon capture and storage seem not quite as far off.

The Oxyclean demonstrator has completed almost 100 tests and has been shown to be safe and stable over long periods, says Doosan. Oxyclean removes more than 90% of CO2 pre-combustion by separating air into oxygen and nitrogen, firing the coal in the oxygen and then capturing the CO2 from the resultant flue gas.

Meanwhile engineers on the PCCC, which was opened in June, are busy developing the post-combustion solvent scrubbing technology Doosan licensed when it bought into Candian firm HTC Purenergy in late 2008. The PCCC simulates the entire process of modern coal-fired power generation by burning coal and biomass and all the gas cleanup systems.

Doosan is backed by the deep pockets of a successful global engineering group with a long-term vision. These are still baby steps, and eyes are looking forward to the industrial scale-up of the technology. But with the facilities and engineering expertise being developed there, it isn’t premature to talk about Renfrew as a potential CCS development cluster.

And compared to the progress being made by the government-funded CCS projects, Doosan’s baby steps are like dinosaur strides.

Launched in 2007, the £1bn competition has been mired by political ineptitude over technology and is now faced by a government focused on financial cuts. The competition’s original aim, of  having a commercial-scale CCS plant operational by 2014, looks unlikely at best. Nevertheless, the front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies are pressing ahead, it was revealed this month, on E.On’s new-build Kingsnorth project, which is delayed until 2016, and Scottish Power’s Longannet retrofit CCS project. The government is due to make a decision by early next year when the FEED studies are complete as to which project will go ahead.

It will be interesting to see who and where, and crucially, with whose money, the step up to commercial-scale CCS happens first. To the victor go the spoils – potentially a massive global market.