South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage

The South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage was launched in March 2009 with financial support from Anglo Coal, Eskom, Exxaro, Sasol, Schlumberger and Xstrata Coal.

Launch
A media release announcing the launch of the centre stated that "the success of CCS in South Africa will ultimately depend on the degree of confidence the scientific community has in the country’s potential for carbon dioxide storage. This, in turn, will hinge on the development of the human capacity needed to truly understand the risks and opportunities of CCS. In order to develop both this required human and technical capacity, a number of national and international stakeholders identified the need to establish and support a national CCS research centre. The centre is a Private/International/Public Partnership and financed from local industry, government and international sources. The ultimate goal of the research centre is to demonstrate this technology in South Africa by means of a carbon dioxide injection experiment and ultimately a demonstration plant by 2020."

Aside from the mining, power generation and other private operators mentioned above, the project involves the South African National Energy Research Institute (SANERI), a subsidiary of CEF (Pty) Ltd. CEF is a joint venture of the Departments of Science & Technology (DST) and Minerals & Energy (DME).

Lobbying for CCS in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
In a March 2010 submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage argued that "the CDM is currently the only viable mechanism to provide incentives that would make CCS projects in developing countries, such as South Africa, feasible."

The centre stated that the South African government's Long Term Mitigation Scenario (LTMS) allowed for the contsruction of major new sources of carbon emissions including a new coal-to-liquids plant and two additional coal-fired power stations with reductions achieved through a number of 'wedges' including CCS. The Centre stated that "CCS will most likely be a significant wedge in meeting the reduction target for South Africa. The deployment of CCS in South Africa will require substantial investments as wells as technical and human capacity building in order to realize the ambitions of the LTMS study."

In its submission the centre argued that in developing countries the inclusion of CCS in the CDM would be the equivalent of a carbon price signal from a cap-and-trade scheme in developed countries. In its submission, the centre argued that "without CCS in the CDM or another ongoing way to leverage funds from developed countries, CCS deployment in South Africa is unlikely to progress beyond the demonstration, or even test-injection level."

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * South Africa and coal

External resources

 * South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage, "Inclusion of CCS under the CDM", Submission to the UNFCCC, March 2010.