Position Paper 2019

Risky Dreams:

Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS)
To achieve the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5ºC, we must make the earliest
possible transition to a decarbonized society. In June 2019, the Government of Japan released its “Long-term Strategy
under the Paris Agreement (LTS)” with an emphasis on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) as a means ofaddressing climate change.1 As the term implies, CCUS is a set of technologies to “capture,” “utilize” and “store” or “use”
carbon dioxide (CO2) in exhaust emissions arising from fossil fuel consumption at power plants and facilities. This position
paper takes a look at CCUS, assesses technical issues, obstacles to practical use and questions about its effectiveness,and challenges Japan’s position on CCUS.

History and evaluation of CCS overseas and in Japan(1) The role of CCS in Japanese policy
Japanese governments and industries are putting
significant effort into carbon capture and storage (CCS)
and carbon capture and utilization (CCU) as measures tomitigate climate change.

even in plant factories,” and it is trying to effectively
promote the innovations needed to realize the concept.5
A report released on June 10, 2019 by the Study Groupto Evaluate the Potential and Practical Application ofEnergy and Environmental Technologies6 established by
the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) andthe Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT)7 looks at the current state of R&D
and practical use of CCUS, as well as bottlenecks for itssocial adoption (mainstreaming). It estimates a cost of
12,400 yen per ton of CO2 (t-CO2) (124US$/t-CO2) toupgrade an existing coal-fired power plant and store CO2
in an aquifer. It also exposes the reality that thetechnologies are still far from being practical as a resultof numerous challenges, including the enormous
amount of energy required in CO2 capture, transport,
and injection processes. Despite this, it concludes thatthe government will continue long-term R&D to
overcome the challenges for realization of thetechnologies.

Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan (July 2018)2 and the LTS(June 11, 2019) highlight CCS and CCU heavily along withhigh-efficiency coal-fired power generation. The LTS
stipulates the aim of “full social adoption in 2030 andthereafter” and “introduction of the CCS by 2030 in thecoal-fired power generation with a view tocommercialization” and “consideration will be given to
the export of the CCS and CCU applied in society.”3 In
January 2019 at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, “It's time now to think
about CCU, Carbon Capture AND Utilization.” This is asign of Japan’s intentions to seek the global expansion ofthis technology. 4
In February 2019, a Carbon Recycling Promotion
Office was established within the Agency for Natural
Resources and Energy. It defines the concept of carbon
recycling as “a series of processes for limiting CO2
emissions through its effective capturing, recycling ascarbon compounds for fuels or raw materials, or utilizing(2) Previous targets still not achieved
Looking back to July 2008, the “Action Plan to Createa Low-Carbon Society” 8 said that Japan will develop
innovative technologies to achieve the target of1

“reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 50%
compared to present by 2050, and reducing CO2
emissions by 60% to 80%.” It also declares the aim to
reduce the cost of carbon capture to the 2,000 yen /tCO2 (20 US$/t-CO2) range in about 2015 and to the 1,000
yen (10 US$) range in the 2020s,” and to start large-scaledemonstration trials in FY 2009 to develop practical CCS
applications by 2020. 9 An April 2015 agreement bydirector-level ministry officials relating to thermal power
plant bids for Tokyo Electric Power Co. includes plans “toconsider the introduction of CCS to coal thermal power
generation by 2030 assuming the relevant technologies
will be commercialized.” 10 But now in 2019, despite
proponents have completely failed to attain cost targets,the above-mentioned study group report still declaresthat the long-term target of 2,000 yen will be attained.

Large earthquakes such as the Niigata Chuetsu
Earthquake (October 2004), Niigata Chuetsu Offshore
Earthquake (July 2007), Great East Japan Earthquake(March 2011), and the Hokkaido Eastern Iburi
Earthquake (September 2018) have occurred withepicenters near the CCS trial sites after CO2 injection,
and a possible causal relationship with CO2 injection has
been pointed out. In the case of the Hokkaido quake, theimplementation body quickly announced that there wasno causal connection. However, there has been no
objective scientific verification by experts, so local
residents and the general public are still concerned by
the fact that a series of large earthquakes has occurred
near CCS demonstration sites. Public acceptance of fullscale CCS will be a significant issue.

There is still no prospect of private-sector uptake, but
the government is attempting to pour even more publicmoney into this technology, without having evaluatedthe complete failure to achieve past targets for cost
reduction and commercialization.

An International Energy Agency (IEA) reportacknowledges that there may be a certain role for CCUS
along with energy efficiency and renewable energy asmeasures to reduce CO2 emissions. However,projections for 2040 in the IEA’s Sustainable
Development Scenario (SDS), which outlines a majortransformation of the global energy system to contributeto the three main energy-related Sustainable
Development Goals simultaneously, shows large
contributions by energy efficiency (42%) and renewableenergy (34%), both of which are becoming larger than inprevious scenarios. In contrast, the contribution of CCUS
remains low at just 7%.13(4) Contribution to climate mitigation scenarios(3) A look at CCS demonstration trials
In terms of demonstration trials in Japan, the ResearchInstitute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE)
started a 1.5-year trial in 2003 and injected 10,000 t-CO2
underground. 11 In 2008, large private companies withspecialized CCS technologies in electricity, oil refining, oil
development, and plant engineering, established JapanCCS Co. and began conducting large scale CCS
demonstration trials in the form of governmentsubsidized or commissioned projects. The trials planned
to inject 100,000 t-CO2 at selected sites – offshore from
Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture, plus Tomakomai City in
Hokkaido, and Hibikinada in Kitakyushu City. The Iwaki
project was halted after Great East Japan Earthquake in2011, but the other projects are reportedly “proceedingsmoothly.”12 It must be noted that there has been no
objective cost-benefit evaluation, and no verification of
the projects.

The “Global Warming of 1.5ºC” special report
released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) in October 2018 includes “bioenergy withcarbon capture and storage” (BECCS) as one option in its
scenarios for reducing emissions. However, BECCS
spawns concerns about massive forest destruction thatwould have to occur in order to obtain fuel, so it is moredifficult for BECCS to attain commercial viability in the
future than for CCS.

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Problems with CCS: [1] Technical issues(2) Risks in transport, operation, monitoring(1) No suitable sites for safe storage in Japan

Whether qualitatively or quantitatively, it is difficult topredict the risks associated with CCS, such as the risk ofleakage during transport, operations, and storage; thelevel of safety during CO2 injection and storage; thepossible negative impacts on health and theenvironment in the event of leakage; and the lack of
certainty regarding the feasibility of long-term storage.
On top of that, no established monitoring methodology
exists to detect leakage.

Implementing CCS requires a base rock layer that canstore sufficient amounts of CO2, but Japan is a land of
frequent earthquakes and has many active faults. There
are few stable sites that would be suitable for storage
over long periods of time, ranging from hundreds tothousands of years. Also, because Japan has almost no
petroleum development areas, it also has no major
prospect of using so-called “enhanced oil recovery”(EOR), which is one method of CO2 storage currently
being implemented elsewhere. It is also difficult to findaquifers suitable for CO2 storage in Japan.

Problems with CCS: [2] Barriers for practical use and deployment(1) Renewables become cheaper, but CCS
remains expensiveby then. Hence, there is virtually no chance for CCS to becompetitive economically.

Coal-fired thermal power generation emits hugeamounts of air pollutants and CO2, incurring expensive
initial costs to limit air pollution, and constantly incurring
the cost of fuel to operate. If CCS is then introduced,
additional costs will be incurred that are equal to or evengreater than the cost of generating electricity. In an
estimate in 2018 by a METI study group, coal-fired
electricity generation with CCS would cost between 15.2
and 18.9 yen/kWh.14 Meanwhile, the cost of commercial
photovoltaic power generation was at 17.7 yen/kWh andonshore wind power was at 15.8 yen/kWh in 2017. Theircosts are basically already competitive with coal power
combined with CCS. On top of that, photovoltaics andwind power are projected to drop to 5.1 and 7.9
yen/kWh, respectively, by 2030. 15 In other words, in
2030, when the government hopes that coal power with
CCS will be practical, the technology is projected to havedramatically higher costs than renewable energy, which
will have achieved considerable further cost reductions(2) Problems gaining public acceptance
The situation relating to electricity has been changing
at a dizzying speed in recent years. Local opposition
movements and lawsuits by local communities havesprung up to fight the construction of new power plants
in Japan. Banks and insurance companies are
increasingly aware of the problems with coal-fired power
generation, and have gradually started cutting back onfinancing and investment for it. Meanwhile, more andmore companies around the world are committing toprocure all the electricity they need from renewableenergy. The transition toward a decarbonized society is
unstoppable. Coal power emits massive amounts of CO2,
and adding CCS technology at considerable cost has no
economical rationality. In that context, it is increasingly
difficult to find any justification to build new coal power
plants or extend the operation of existing ones by adding
CCS technologies. It is highly questionable whether CCUS,
which comes with so many risks, could ever be publicly
accepted.

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Problems with CCS: [3] Dubious effectivenessrequire 3 GJ/t-CO2 of energy for the capture andpressurization process. In addition, equipping vehicles orother mobile sources with CCS equipment will bedifficult, and costs are a major hurdle for small emission
sources. Even if such technology could ever be broadly
adopted, it would still be impossible for society toachieve decarbonization.

(1) Too late as a climate solution
In Japan, CCS research began in the 1980s under MITI,
METI’s predecessor, with the aim of achieving practicalfeasibility by 2020. Today, however, only two power
plants combined with CCS are currently in operation
anywhere in the world. In Japan, CCS still has notgraduated from the small-scale demonstration stage, so
the original grand projections lie in ruins. The hope forpractical feasibility in 2020 has withered, and the newtarget has been delayed by ten years to 2030. However,based on the path so far, the likelihood of practicalfeasibility for CCS in 2030 is exceedingly low.

(3) The “U” (utilization) is just a “castle in the air”
Japan has very few sites that would be suitable for CO2
storage, so it has begun to pour resources into the“utilization” part, CCU to utilize CO2. One approach thathas been floated is to utilize large quantities of CO2 toreplace fossil-fuel-derived chemical products and fuels,
andmanufacture
concreteproductsusing
carbonation. 16 Indeed, it is technically possible to use
catalytic conversion with hydrogen on CO2 generated
from fossil fuel combustion, and perform “carbon
recycling” to create synthetic fuel. However, hydrogencatalytic conversion for inert substances like CO2
requires enormous amounts of energy. This would beakin to pouring boiling water onto ice to produce warm
water, and then consuming a large amount of energy torecreate ice and boiling water from the warm water.

In order to limit global warming to the 1.5ºC under theParis Agreement, the world must promote strategies
that can be applied immediately. In other words, it isabsolutely crucial to achieve significant emission
reductions by 2030. In this context, any strategy thatplaces its hope in a technology that “might” be feasible
after 2030 is lacking a basis in reality as a measure to
mitigate climate change, and it amounts to nothing morethan an excuse to postpone other actions that need tobe taken.

(2) CCS will not result in zero emissions

Nowhere in the world has anyone yet considered
launching a life-cycle assessment (LCA) analysis of CCU
technologies. Under the title of “Creating new societal
systems through innovation” the Japanese government
says that it is important for Japan to advance R&D with
the LCA perspective in mind. But it should not waste timeand money on things that simply don’t make sense.

Even with CCS, we cannot achieve zero CO2 emissions.
Energy is consumed in every process involved with CCS:
capture of CO2 in the exhaust gases emitted from power
plants or other facilities, compression, transportation,and storage. If, for example, carbon capture equipmentusing chemical sequestration is attached to a newlyconstructed coal-fired power plant, it will reportedly

Conclusion: CCUS offers no climate solution
As described above, CCUS technologies have many
shortcomings in terms of effectiveness, economic
viability and environmental impacts, as well as
technological risks, and they have no prospect of
becoming practically feasible. They also make noeconomic sense. These technologies cannot help withefforts to achieve CO2 emission reduction targets or raise
the current level of ambition by 2030. Not only are they
inadequate as a part of actions to address climatechange, they are also inappropriate to be relied upon onor emphasized in government policy.
The Government of Japan has continued to use nuclear
power generation by justifying it with promises ofcreating a complete nuclear fuel cycle, which remains
absolutely useless despite having consumed vast
amounts of public funds. With CCUS, Japan risks
repeating exactly the same story. Continuing to pour4public funds into CCUS and prolonging the fantasy ofachieving practical feasibility only serves to provide more
subsidies to coal-related industries and prolong their life,
while cynically delaying what we really need—an exitfrom coal power. All of this makes it increasingly difficult
to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement.

promote regulatory reforms in the power sector in orderto more effectively utilize renewable energy. What isneeded now is a rapid transition away from the use ofcoal and other fossil fuels. In regard to the priorities ofgovernment policy, we need to fundamentally steer
Japan toward promotion of energy efficiency, which
results in guaranteed reductions in energy consumption
and CO2 emissions, as well as renewable energy, which
has seen rapidly cost declines in recent years and is
growing rapidly in installed capacity.

Japan needs to stop promoting coal power andplodding along its own path with CCS, which makes coal
power generation even more costly. It would be vastly
more sensible to modernize Japan’s electricity grid and1Long-term Strategy under the Paris Agreement (June 11, 2019),
https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/The%20Long-term%20Strategy%20under%20the%20Paris%20Agreement.pdf
2
See https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/others/basic_plan/5th/pdf/strategic_energy_plan.pdf
3
See footnote 1, p25-26.
4
World Economic Forum annual meeting, speech by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (January 23, 2019),
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/abe-speech-transcript/
5
Press release by Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (February 1, 2019),
https://www.meti.go.jp/press/2018/02/20190201003/20190201003.html
6Original Japanese name is “Enerugi Kankyo Gijyutsu no Potential Jitsuyoka Hyoka Kentokai.”
7
Study Group to Evaluate the Potential and Practical Application of Energy and Environmental Technologies (June 10, 2019),
https://www.meti.go.jp/press/2019/06/20190610002/20190610002.html
8
See https://www.env.go.jp/press/file_view.php?serial=11912&hou_id=10025 (in Japanese)
9Japan’s Coal Policy and the Development and Spread of Clean Coal and CCS Technologies (Coal Section, Agency for Natural
Resources and Energy) http://www.jcoal.or.jp/coaldb/shiryo/material/cctWorkshop2009_text1_1.pdf
10Summary of Related Division Directors Meeting relating to Thermal Power Bids for Tokyo Electric Power Co.,https://www.env.go.jp/press/16597.html
11
Nagaoka CO2 Injection Demonstration Trial on Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE),
https://www.rite.or.jp/co2storage/safety/nagaoka/
12
CCS R&D/demonstration project multiple topic program technology evaluation report (interim evaluation) (February 2019).
13
International Energy Agency (IEA), Carbon capture, utilisation and storage, https://www.iea.org/topics/carbon-capture-andstorage/
14
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Situation with CCS” (June 11, 2018) slide 9,
https://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/sangi/ccs_jissho/pdf/001_05_00.pdf
15
Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Future topics toward major power electrical sources of renewable energy, August29, 2018 https://www.meti.go.jp/shingikai/enecho/denryoku_gas/saisei_kano/pdf/007_01_00.pdf
16Study Group to Evaluate the Potential and Practical Application of Energy and Environmental Technologies (June 10, 2019),
from p27 on CCU, https://www.meti.go.jp/press/2019/06/20190610002/20190610002.html

Publisher: Kiko Network, published June 2019
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