A total of R25-million has, to date, been pledged to support the research and development that would be conducted by the South African Centre of Carbon Capture and Storage over the next five years.

Speaking at the launch of the centre on Friday, acting CEO of the South African National Energy Research Institute (Saneri) Tony Surridge said that this amount could increase as other parties joined the project.

Several parties on Friday signed a charter for the establishment of the centre, which would fall under Saneri, which was a subsidiary of the Central Energy Fund (CEF).

Saneri, Sasol, the British High Commission, Eskom, Anglo Coal, Exxaro, Xstrata Coal and energy focused services provider, Schlumberger, as well as the Norwegian government were partners in the project.

Surridge noted that carbon capture and storage was a transition measure between using fossil fuels and using predominantly nuclear and renewable energy.

Further, he explained that the centre’s main objective would be to ensure the development of the human and technical capacity for South Africa to undertake carbon capture and storage when necessary.

He added that the centre’s emphasis would be to gain an understanding of the South African geology and how carbon would react to the geology.

The South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s long-term mitigation scenario was to capture and store 5% of the country’s carbon emissions.

This meant that if South Africa stored 40-million tons a year of carbon dioxide (CO₂) over a 100-year period, it would need four gigatons of storage capacity.

Preliminary studies conducted by the Council of Geosciences had shown that South Africa had an available storage capacity of 100 gigatons, said Surridge, adding that the Carbon Storage Atlas being developed would further define potential storage sites.

Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica noted that the development of the atlas was a critical step in the carbon capture and storage process.

The atlas, which was expected to be completed by mid-2010, currently only focused on South Africa, but the Minister said it could potentially be expanded to include the rest of the Southern African Development Community region.

Sonjica added that it was gratifying that South African industry had pledged its support for the development of the centre.

“The South African industry and other stakeholders have demonstrated that public–private partnerships in resolving challenges that face not only South Africa, but the global community at large, can work.”

British deputy High Commissioner Judith Slater commented that carbon capture and storage would need coalitions of public and private partners, international partners and new flows of funding to bring together increased investment in demonstration plants.

South Africa planned to implement a CO₂ injection experiment by 2016, after which it would develop a demonstration plant by 2020.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian government and Schlumberger were also providing technical expertise to the project, with the Norwegian Ambassador to South Africa, Tor Christian Hildan, saying it was happy to share its extensive experience on the carbon storage side with South Africa.

He noted that Norway was also hard at work on the carbon capturing side, saying it was still a challenge to get the costs of the process down.

He added that South Africa’s synthetic fuel producers already produced pure CO₂, leading to lower costs, but that South Africa’s challenge lay in the fact that its carbon storage capacity had not been fully determined and defined yet.

Hildan emphasised the important role South Africa was playing in the international climate change negotiations during what he called a “critical year for the world’s environment”.