First carbon capture plant starts up in Germany

Swedish company Vattenfall has announced that its carbon plant with an incorporated CO₂ capture facility in Stemberg, Germany, started working this week. The plant, which features proprietary technology to reduce pollutants, stores the CO₂ inside an abandoned gas field in Altmark, Germany. How does this power plant work? With a so-called Oxyfuel process: Lignite and hard coal burn in a mixture of oxygen and re-circulated CO₂, which also contains water vapor. The flue gas is then treated to remove pollutants. Finally, the water is condensed and the concentrated CO₂ is compressed into a liquid and stored 600 meters (about 900ft) underground. Other carbon storage projects use abandoned coal mines (like this one in Spain) or keeps the CO₂ under the sea (with Ariel, apparently).

Vattenfall has invested more than €70 million in this plant, which produces 30 MW of electricity. This company expects to make the technology ready to sell by 2015, when two additional 30 MW plants will be ready in Germany and Denmark. According to the company, the Stemberg plant will have reduced its carbon emissions by 40 percent in 2020.

[Source: El Mundo via Madri+d]