Countering global warming

Carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fossil energy use, is the principal source of greenhouse gases. Three sectors — transportation, heating and industry — are the biggest emitters. However, all forecasts point to continued increases in global primary energy consumption, which is projected to rise from 10.5 billion metric tons of oil equivalent today to 16 billion or even 18 billion by 2030. Under the circumstances, greenhouse gas reduction is a challenge shared by all.

Total, a responsible industrial operator

The oil industry as a whole is responsible for 5% of greenhouse gas emissions, with Total accounting for one-fiftieth of that amount. In the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol, we pledged in 2001 to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Our goal was to cut them by 30% from 1990 levels by 2005, a target we achieved ahead of schedule, in 2004. This sharp decrease, a tribute to the efficiency of our efforts, was achieved mainly by curtailing the gas flaring associated with oil production and enhancing the energy efficiency of our industrial processes.

The issue now is reconciling future continued reductions in greenhouse gas emissions with the need to develop unconventional resources, which are big carbon emitters, in order to meet rising global demand for energy. Very acid gas, for example has a high carbon dioxide content, while extra-heavy oil and oil sands require production techniques that emit large quantities of carbon dioxide. To meet this challenge, Total has opted for a proactive strategy of investing in carbon capture and geological storage. Besides curbing our own emissions, this genuine technological breakthrough has a ripple effect on industry as a whole and coal and gas-fired power production in particular.

Commercial pilot in Lacq

Capture, transportation and storage are the three key steps in checking growing emissions of carbon to the air. Our pilot project in Lacq is organized around the same three steps, which form a complete process. To capture the carbon dioxide, one of the five existing boilers at the Lacq facility has been retrofitted to use oxygen instead of air for combustion. This technique, called oxy-fuel combustion, produces a stack gas with a high concentration of carbon dioxide, facilitating its capture. The recovered, compressed gas is then piped 27 kilometers and injected into a depleted reservoir in the Rousse gas field, 4,500 meters underground. A total of 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide will be captured and stored in this way during the two-year pilot phase that began in 2009.

Two years to succeed

Because oxy-fuel combustion has never before been commercially validated on this scale, the Lacq pilot is a crucial step, an essential precursor, in fact, to deploying this process at future production sites. Our teams have two years to demonstrate the feasibility of this innovative option. Their main goals are to commercially validate the process and demonstrate that it can halve capture costs compared to existing processes*. Specialists are developing a methodology and monitoring tools to prove that carbon storage is a reliable, permanent solution for long-term, larger-scale applications.

The stakes are high: carbon capture and storage, notably via oxy-fuel combustion, could treat between 20 and 40% of industrial carbon emissions by 2050.