Examples of more than a dozen positive solutions to that effect are available, but all concern carbon storage in gas and oil fields and that only in small-volume reservoirs. Much hope is therefore attached to storage in saline aquifers. Poland has many of these but their geological identification is too general and detailed drillings have to be made to explore their storage possibility.
How does all that relate to the timetable of political expectations that the problem is resolved? After 2015, we should effectively store CO2 emitted from power stations, and all CO2 emissions after 2020. So we have 12 years to do that, but despite the great weight of the issue it can hardly be expected that an appropriate infrastructure will come into place within that time. The task is very important, it must be carried out and the Polish Energy Group (PGE) will do that, but the timetable is hardly realistic.
From our point of view, which is that of an energy producer, the issue of selecting a CO2 transportation and storage technology is less important. What we are focusing on is assuring that all power plants we are planning and also those under construction are equipped with CO2 precipitators. That applies to the lignite-fired 800 MW unit currently being built in Bełchatów and the next ones there, two hard-coal powered units in Opole, the new lignite-fired unit in Turów and the planned hard coal-fired station in Lubin. These will be all dust- emitting power plants and hence CO2 will be captured from flue gases. The appropriate technologies are already known. We are working on refining these technologies and cutting the costs involved. We hope that we shall succeed as we had in dealing with the desulphurization technology: over the past 20 years - we managed to reduce the cost of that process 8 to 10 times.
Much hope is attached to coal gasification projects, but official declarations of support are not propped up by funding decisions. Yet the operation cost of an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) installation amounts to EUR 3 million for 1 MW, while that of a regular dust capture plant is twice cheaper. These new technologies consist of many cycles of which every single one has been well researched. However, no practical research was done on how to put these cycles together to ensure effective operation of the whole. Any such investment decision must be economically sound. No energy producer will take such a decision without financial support for the investment and subsequently for the operation of such a power plant.

Jacek Sawicki, deputy director of the PGE Strategy Department