Carbon Capture & Storage | CANMET CO2 R&D Consortium

CanmetENERGY CO₂ Research and Development Consortium

Between 1993 and 1995, CanmetENERGY invested over $4 million in building the world’s first advanced oxy-fuel combustion pilot-scale research facility. This facility housed the development of a suite of supporting combustion processes, components and technologies to allow fossil fuels to be used efficiently with near zero–emissions environmental performance. Since the commissioning of the facility in 1995, and under the sponsorship and general direction of an international consortium comprising industrial and government stakeholders, our research program has undergone 8 successive phases of research and development (R&D) to help bring oxy-fuel combustion, advanced power cycles, integrated multi-pollutant, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture technologies to a level of commercial acceptance.

The CanmetENERGY’s CO₂ R&D Consortium is now in Phase 9, which is developing the first-of-its-kind CO₂ capture and compression unit. This unit will be capable of separating and compressing CO₂ from combustion flue gas streams for pipeline transportation. Part of this work involves studying CO₂ phase change and the impact of impurities in the gas stream on the process. This has important practical applications relating to the CO₂ pipeline, material selection, and commercial design and implementation of these systems. Other on-going R&D activities include the modelling of advanced near-zero emissions cycles, including supercritical and ultra supercritical oxy-coal plants with CO₂ capture, the development and testing of multi-pollutant control strategies, as well as the testing and optimization of a novel multi-function oxy-fuel/steam burner. The outcomes of our research efforts have been used in studies and in R&D undertaken by different national and international organizations in order to evaluate technology applications in process heaters, pulverized coal-fired utility boilers and advanced natural gas combined cycle processes.

The current members of the CanmetENERGY CO₂ R&D Consortium are Ontario Power Generation, SaskPower, Babcock & Wilcox, Alberta Energy Research Institute, Natural Resources Canada, and the Carbon Capture Project (CCP) consortium. CCP is an international joint project that involves 8 of the world's leading energy companies, as well as the US Department of Energy, European Commission, the Research Council of Norway, and two associate members, and is currently managed by BP Corporation North America Inc.

We continue to be recognized as a world leader in oxy-fuel combustion technology. Through its long lived R&D consortium, we are in the process of developing new generation technologies supporting oxy-fuel combustion and other near zero-emissions fossil fuel technologies with CO₂ capture and storage.

Invitation to Participate

CanmetENERGY encourages new industry members and government organizations to join the CanmetENERGY CO₂ R&D Consortium. Participants are required to agree to the terms and conditions of the Consortium Agreement. This agreement contains a provision stipulating that new members are required to back-pay to access the R&D results obtained in the Phases prior to their participation. Paying members will then have access to all the R&D results of the CanmetENGERY CO₂ Consortium dating back to 1994.