As of September 30, 2016, the Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies program at MIT has closed. The website is being kept online as a reference but will not be updated.

Tomakomai Project Fact Sheet: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Project

Company/Alliance: Japanese Government JCCS

Location: Tomakomai, Hokkaido Islands, Japan

Feedstock: Hydrogen production unit in an oil refinery

Size: 0.1 Mt/yr

Capture Technology: Activated amine process

CO2 Fate: Offshore Geological storage

Timing: Operational March 2016. Planned to operate for 3 years

Scale Up: Potential large scale CCS plant in Japan.

Motivation/Economics:

Japan CCS Co., Ltd (JCCS) was established in 2008 by leading Japanese companies of various categories to promote demonstration of CCS in Japan. JCCS was commissioned by METI in 2008 to investigate and survey candidate sites for implementing a large-scale CCS demonstration project in Japan.

Comments:

Tomakomai started capture from its pilot plant in March 18, 2016. This is on schedule with the original plan. Tomakomai will capture at least 100'000 tons of CO2 per year for 3 years. The CO2 will be stored in offshore geological units. These are the Moebetsu Formation (1'100m) and/or Takinoue Formation (2'400 m).

JCCS was commissioned to execute this CCS demonstration project for the first four years from April 2012 until March 2016 before actual CO2 injection. In this period, two major facilities will be newly designed and constructed by March 2016. These facilities are located near by a petroleum refinery plant. CO2 is captured from off-gas generated at a hydrogen production unit in the refinery plant. Two injection wells are to be drilled beside the injection facility. These wells will be inclined to injection points at the reservoir sub-seabed.

Reservoir information: The Moebetsu Formation is a 1'100 to 1'200 meters deep Quaternary sandstone with a porosity of 20-40% and permeability of 9-25md. The reservoir is covered by an about 200m thick mudstone layer of the Moebetsu Formation as a cap rock. The other formations is the Takinoue formation which is at 2'400 to 3'000 meters deep. This Miocene volcanic and volcaniclastic rock is about 600m thick with porosity between 3-19% and permeability of 0.01md to 2.6D. The Takinoue formation is also covered with 1'100 mudstone.

Project Link: Japan CCS Co. Ltd website

Technical Papers:

Tanaka, Y, M Abe, Y Sawada, D Tanase, T Ito, T Kasukawa, Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project in Japan, 2014, Energy Procedia, Vol 63, pp 6111-6119, (2014) <Link to PDF>

Ronald Wennersten, Qie Sun, Hailong Li. The future potential for Carbon Capture and Storage in climate change mitigation e an overview from perspectives of technology, economy and risk. Journal of Cleaner Production (2014) 1-13 <Link to PDF>

Other Sources and Press Release:

First CCS demonstration project in Japan starts up, over 100,000 tonnes of CO2 to be stored per year (August 2016)
Tomakomai CCS Project showcases Japanese technology leadership (March 2016)
Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project in Japan, 2014 Update from GHGT-12 (October 2014)
Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project in Japan (May 2014)
CCS Regulation and Demonstration in Japan. Presentation at May 2014 IEA Regulatory Network Meeting (May 2014)
For safe operation of a CCS demonstration project (2009)