South Africa Draws Up Plan for Carbon Capture and Storage Plant

South Africa has drawn up plans for its first pilot plant for carbon capture and storage with a year 2020 target to cap emissions.

The South African Center for Carbon Capture and Storage will be part of a path toward limiting greenhouse gas emissions in line with a government initiative on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction.

The initiative also includes a measure for five per cent of South Africa’s emissions to be mitigated by carbon capture and storage.

But the southern Africa nation, the continent’s largest emitter of greenhouses gases, hopes the plant will help reduce her carbon footprint and mitigate emissions, minerals and energy minister, Buyelwa Sonjica, said.

South Africa’s government funded National Energy Research Institute (SANERI) is already collaborating with the private sector to develop a carbon dioxide storage atlas for the country that will locate and characterize potential carbon dioxide storage sites. About 60 per cent of South Africa’s emissions are potentially capturable, according to SANERI.

The mapping project is due to be completed mid 2010 but may be extended in scope to include other countries within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) bloc, the minister hinted.

“Climate change is a global dilemma that requires a global resolution. Carbon capture and storage is a relatively new technology for the mitigation of greenhouse gases and is being propelled forward in a global context and it is essential that South Africa accesses worldwide advances and co-operates with other experts in the field”, Sonjica said.

“We have already heard of the technology of carbon capture and storage and the actions that the (capture and storage) center will be undertaking. Those actions will facilitate a state of country readiness for South Africa that will ensure, at the appropriate time, the technology can be readily applied”.

As a coal based energy economy, South Africa is a country with significant greenhouse gas emission per capita. The country depends on coal for 90 per cent of its power.

But major players in the energy sector have recently identified the importance of carbon capture and storage towards mitigating greenhouse emissions.

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