BACKGROUND

Fossil fuels will continue to be the dominant source of primary energy production globally for many years to come. These of these carbon based fuels leads to the production of greenhouse gases, principally CO2. The increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, in recent years can be attributed to increased fossil fuel consumption. To reduce the impact of these gases on the global climate it is necessary to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved through a combination of mitigation options, no mitigation option alone will achieve the desired reduction targets. Mitigation options that are included in the portfolio of options include: improved energy efficiency, introduction of renewable energy, nuclear power and CO2 capture and storage (CCS).

CCS is now generally seen as a major contributor to reducing emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. In particular global implementation of CCS could allow large scale reductions of CO2 emissions to be achieved before the end of the next century. Presently, the potential of CCS is being explored in more than 100 projects around the world and international conferences serve as platforms to exchange the results from these activities amongst experts.

For wide scale deployment however, it is necessary to broaden the knowledge base in industrialised and developing countries, particularly at an academic level. Training courses or summer schools are one way of contributing in this area, accelerating and supporting the dissemination of knowledge on the potential for CCS to students around the world.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The IEA GHG CCS Summer School was initiated to provide students with diverse academic backgrounds a broad understanding of the issues surrounding CCS and encourage their active participation in this area. The inaugural Summer School was held in Kloster Seeon, Germany in 2007 and was a resounding success which prompted IEA GHG to commit to repeating the event annually at different locations around the world.

The summer school will be a week long exercise with presentations and discussion groups led by international experts in the field of CCS. In addition to the discussion programme, the students will be broken into teams to undertake short research activities on issues of importance within the CCS area, with a presentation to their peers at the end of the week. Time will also be allocated for networking and for informal discussions with the assembled experts. Students leaving at the end of the week will have developed a network of contacts in the field of CCS and will have gained a broad overview of the issues surrounding technology development and implementation in CCS.

Scope

The summer school programme covers every aspect of CCS and aims to present the most recent information available in each field. The topics covered include:
• Sources of CO2
• Capture of CO2
• Transport of CO2
• Underground geological storage
• Mineral carbonation and industrial uses of CO2
• Safety
• Costs and economic potential of CCS
• Regulatory regimes
• Implications of CCS for GHG inventories and accounting.

The target group for the summer school is young scientists, e.g. PhD students and Post Docs with background in engineering, geo-technologies, socio-economics. Generally some 60 students from both developed and developing countries will participate.

There will be over 20 experts attending the shool from industry and research.

The experts attending the summer school will be in attendance throughout the week of the summer school. They are there to lead discussion in their areas of expertise, they are also available for leading smaller discussion groups on the project topics and other topics of interest to the students – this is a tremendous opportunity to gain from the experience of the assembled experts.

Details for the 2010 Summer School