China “Fastest Moving” on CO2 Capture, Global CCS Institute Says 

 

China is quickly becoming a leader in the deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies, according to an annual status report released by the Global CCS Institute. Nine new CCS projects were announce in 2011, five of them in China. “China is the fastest-moving nation now on CCS,” Brad Page, CEO of the Institute, said. The country “has moved very rapidly from right down in the bottom of our league tables to now being number three in the world [behind the U.S. and Canada] in terms of number of projects.”

 

Chinese companies are also beginning to participate in projects in other countries. As McIlvaine reported in the September 21 E-Alert, China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec) was awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the $2.5 billion Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP). In addition, the China Export-Import Bank is providing a $1 billion loan for TCEP, the only loan that will be needed for the entire project. “That may well turn out to be just a sign of things to come,” Page said. “It’s a very important development.”

 

Currently there are 75 CCS projects in development worldwide compared to 74 in 2010.  In addition to the nine new projects, eight were cancelled over the past year according to the report.

 

The nine new CCS projects are: