Meeting Summary. MIT Carbon Sequestration Initiative Sponsor s Meeting October 30, 2000

Transcription

1 Meeting Summary MIT Carbon Sequestration Initiative Sponsor s Meeting October 30, 2000 The first Sponsors Meeting of the MIT Carbon Sequestration Initiative (CSI) was held from 2-6 pm on Monday, October 30, at the MIT Energy Laboratory. An agenda of the meeting is included in this summary. Attending the meeting were: Manoj Guha and Dale Heydlauff from AEP Alan Dunker from GM Arthur Lee from Texaco Robert Constans from TotalFinaElf Gerbrand Ceder, Elisabeth Drake, Alan Hatton, Howard Herzog, and Jefferson Tester from MIT Hans Aksel Haugan from Norsk Hydro and Rodolphe Bouchard from TotalFinaElf missed the meeting due to travel problems arising from bad weather in London and Paris. Jim Anderson from Ford had conflicts with internal meetings at Ford. After a round of introductions, Howard Herzog gave a Program Status and Overview. Some key points from the presentation are: The consortium was originally launched on July 1, 2000 with 6 charter members. We are actively pursuing new members. Our best prognosis is that we will add 2-4 new members. We reviewed the results of the new members questionnaire (included at the end of this summary). All 6 charter members responded. The results guided us in proposing the detailed program for year 1. We are positioning the CSI to complement and not compete with other programs. We view a multi-industry membership as a strength of the consortium (we are actively pursuing a coal company to join). In terms of our information exchange, both our web site and our list are active. Parts of the web site are not complete (e.g., members only section) because of problems with creating password protection. We must change servers to accomplish this, and hope to do so in the next month. Then we can post reports like this summary on the server. Elisabeth Drake, representing the Energy Lab management team, discussed a reorganization going on at MIT. Starting July 1, 2001, the Energy Laboratory will merge with the Center on Environmental Initiatives (the new name for the merged center has not yet been finalized). We will all be physically located on the 4 th floor of building E40 (current Energy Laboratory 1

2 headquarters). Joining us on that floor will be the researchers from our Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change. The merger will have no direct effect on the operation of the consortium, but we anticipate that the new structure and space location will improve the synergy across our energy, environmental, and climate change groups. Each company present gave a brief overview of their interest in carbon sequestration and the CSI: AEP is the largest coal consumer in the US. They believe carbon capture and sequestration technologies are necessary if we are to meet climate demands. Texaco has a company policy of doing a greenhouse gas assessment for all projects over $10 million. GM sees possibilities for carbon sequestration in their manufacturing plants and low carbon fuels are of great interest as a transportation fuel. TotalFinaElf is defining a sustainable development policy, which includes greenhouse gases. CO 2 capture and sequestration is included in their strategy to control their greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed research agenda for the next year was presented and discussed: Prof. Alan Hatton of Chemical Engineering presented a project entitled Liquid Crystals as Stimulus-Responsive Media for Dynamic Mediation of Chemical Separations. This is a new approach to the capture problem. A detailed written description was distributed at the meeting. Prof. Gerbrand Ceder of Materials Science and Engineering presented a project entitled Evaluating the Limits of High Capacity H-storage Materials. Once again, a detailed written description was distributed at the meeting. Howard Herzog described the on-going assessment work, much of it focused on economic assessment. We currently have three full time graduate students working in this area, primarily funded through DOE accounts. Our proposal is to leverage this work for the consortium. Therefore, only a nominal amount of consortium money will be directly used on these projects. However, the results of our larger effort will be made available to all consortium members. 2

3 The proposed budget for the period of July 1, 2000 to June 30, 2001 is: General Administration - $36K Forum (direct expenses) $30K Hydrogen Project - $51K Capture Project - $51K (an additional $46K to be added in year 2) Assessment Work - $12K Total = $180,000 (6 x $30,000) There was no objection to the proposed budget. The rest of the meeting was dedicated to discussion. Some of the points raised included: There was a discussion on some points regarding seed project funding. It was agreed that seed funding would be done by consensus as a group as opposed to allowing differential allocation of funding by individual members. Seed projects can only receive up to $100,000 total in funding from the consortium. Members or others may choose to fund follow-on research, but under a contractual arrangement separate from the CSI. Companies requested MIT provide details on the full cost of the project. In addition to consortium funds, we will provide other sources of project revenue, as well as in-kind contributions from MIT. We will transmit this information early next year so companies can use it to show consortium benefits. It was requested that MIT notify consortium members of publications, in advance if possible. We will do this, as well as making electronic copies available. Finally, we welcome any suggestions or comments from consortium members in planning our future. This includes ideas for research or assessment projects, ideas for forum topics, or ideas on how we can better work together. We would also appreciate any help you can give us in recruiting new members. 3

4 Agenda MIT Carbon Sequestration Initiative Sponsor s Meeting MIT Energy Laboratory Room E Monday, October 30, :00 3:00 pm Welcome Introductions Program Status and Overview 3:00 4:30 pm Research Initiatives Economic Assessment (Howard Herzog) Novel Capture Technology (Professor Alan Hatton) Hydrogen Storage (Professor Gerbrand Ceder) 4:30 5:00 pm Break 5:00 6:00 pm Short-term Goals Long-term Goals Other Topics 6:00 pm Dinner at the MIT Faculty Club 4

5 Questionnaire Carbon Sequestration Topics Topic Ave Min Max Economic analysis and integrative assessment CO 2 separation and capture Storage in oil and gas reservoirs Storage in deep aquifers Storage in coal seams Ocean storage Terrestrial sequestration (trees and soils) Ocean sequestration via fertilization CO 2 chemical conversion and utilization CO 2 biological conversion and utilization Societal aspects and public acceptance Decarbonization of fossil fuels 5 5

6 Questionnaire Program Components Topic Ave Min Max Objective assessments Identifying new business opportunities Educating a wider audience Annual forum Information exchange via and web site Stimulate new cutting edge research