Norway group to spend $59M on carbon capture

A Norwegian group announced plans recently to invest NOK 317 million ($59 million USD) in research to find cost effective ways to slow global warming through carbon capture methods.

The project will look at capturing carbon directly from coal–and gas–fired power plants, and from the process industry, which combined account for about 40 percent of the globe’s emissions, the group said.

The 8-year project, called SOLVit, is spearheaded by industrial technology company Aker Clean Carbon with participation from independent research organization SINTEF and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Norway's state-run Gassnova, which concentrates on carbon capture, plans to contribute NOK 34 million of the cost for the project’s first phase through 2010.

The first phase plans to test chemical solutions based on amines, which have the ability to breakdown carbon dioxide. Aker Clean Carbon and SINTEF have previously worked together to develop amine solutions, one of which is ready to use, the companies say. The pair will test other amine solutions in the first phase.

The group plans to build a new, NOK 42 million-laboratory for the project next to SINTEF’s multi-phase laboratory, just south of Trondheim.

The new laboratory “will strengthen our standing in the international arena and improve our position in competition for financial support for scientific research from institutions such as the European Union,” said SINTEF Chief Executive Unni Steinsmo in a news release.

Norway has said it would spend more than NOK 300 million on research and development of cost-effective carbon capture programs.

Researchers across the globe are trying out different techniques to sequester and remove carbon emissions. In February, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, said they found a way to filter greenhouse gases from power plants by using creating crystal structures that can selectively capture carbon dioxide (see Carbon capture gets crystal powered).

A government-backed project in Canada by Houston-based Spectra Energy said in May it was researching whether deep underground saline reservoirs were appropriate for carbon capture and storage (see Spectra Energy looking at carbon capture in Canada).

And some companies, such as Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Carbon Sense Solutions and Los Gatos, Calif.-based Calera, are developing methods to convert carbon into a material that can be used to make concrete (see Capturing carbon with concrete).