In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and added that levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have “increased markedly as a result of human activities.”

There is an emerging consensus that global average temperature rises will need to be limited to around 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels in order to reduce the risk of climate change effects. To achieve this, it will be necessary to reduce the growth in greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within a short period of time.

In May last year, BP and Rio Tinto formed a 50/50 joint venture, Hydrogen Energy, to focus on developing industrial scale, base-load, hydrogen-fuelled power generation, using fossil fuels and carbon capture and storage.The projects will reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power generation by some 90% when compared with existing plants. The focus is on the power generation sector as it is the largest source of man-made carbon dioxide emissions - accounting for nearly twice as much as comes from the transport sector.

Similarly, in April 2006, Abu Dhabi launched Masdar, a multi-billion dollar investment in renewable and alternative energy and clean technology. Masdar is helping to explore, develop and commercialise such future energy sources. Masdar is driven by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC), a wholly-owned company of the government of Abu Dhabi through the Mubadala Development Company.

During the January World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Masdar and Hydrogen Energy announced the signing of an agreement to work together on the $45m front-end engineering design of an industrial-scale hydrogen-fired power generation project with capture of the carbon dioxide, which would then be available for transportation and storage. The plant will be located in Abu Dhabi.

Lewis Gillies, Chief Executive of Hydrogen Energy, notes that “Through Masdar, Abu Dhabi has shown strong leadership in creating the right environment in which hydrogen power with carbon capture and storage, and other alternative energies, can be deployed successfully.”

“This joint project will bring together - in a single integrated scheme - a number of technologies already operating at scale successfully around the world,” according to Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, Chief Executive of Masdar.

At the heart of the plant would be a natural gas reformer and carbon capture facility where 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day would be transformed into hydrogen and CO2 gases. The hydrogen gas would be used to fuel gas turbines and generate around 420 MW of low-carbon electricity, with water vapour being the main emission. This would be enough to provide more than 5% of all Abu Dhabi’s current power generation capacity.

Rather than being emitted to the atmosphere, some 90%, or 1.7 million tonnes per annum, of the carbon in the natural gas that is delivered to the plant would be captured as carbon dioxide – equivalent to decarbonising Abu Dhabi’s entire domestic transport sector. Once captured, it is ready for transportation and injection into a producing oil fieldwhereitwouldbesafely and permanently stored.

The CO2 would replace the natural gas currently being injected into oil fieldsto maintain pressure, allowing the gas to be used to fuel Abu Dhabi’s continued growth, or to be exported. If this process was deployed at scale, it would potentially release a significantamountofadditional natural gas for Abu Dhabi and the rest of the United Arab Emirates.

The CO2 injected into the oil fields could also potentially enable previously unrecoverable oil to be produced. If deployed widely in the country, this enhanced oil recovery process could boost Abu Dhabi’s oil production significantly.The CO2 would remain stored securely and permanently in the oil field beneath its natural impervious seal.

The overall project would require total capital investment (excluding the investment in CO2 transportation and sequestration) of about Dh 7 billion (US $ 2 billion). Subject to the completion of the engineering design and agreement on an enabling commercial structure, the partners aspire to make the decision to proceed with construction by early 2009. This should allow the plant to come into commercial operation in 2012

Around the world there are a number of similar power generation schemes with carbon capture that are being proposed. But, with a timeline that should allow the plant to come onstream in 2012, the Abu Dhabi scheme has the potential to be the firstindustrial scale project to come into commercial operation.