This summer, the members of the CHEERS consortium will be presenting their findings on a leading scientific Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology conference. The Conference will take place in Trondheim, Norway, on June 17–19 2019.

Since its inception in 2003, the bi-annual Trondheim CCS Conference has become a meeting point for leading researchers in the field of CCS. So far, over 400 experts coming from research and development institutions, universities and industry, have presented and discussed their work by participating in the Conference (click here for more information on the TCCS-10 conference). This year, these presentations will include various findings from the project partners of the CHEERS consortium.

‘’For many years we’ve been talking about CCS for CCS’s sake, which it is not. It’s about having clean energy, it’s about having a clean industry, it’s about having competitiveness and to have a decent handover of our planet to next generations’’ says Nils Rokke, the Executive Vice President of Sustainability at SINTEF.

CHEERS is a project which aims to achieve such goals by increasing the efficiency and decreasing the costs of the CLC capture technology. Finding more efficient ways of capturing CO₂ emissions from industrial sources is an important part of achieving climate goals. A more energy and cost-efficient CLC technology will also help in reconciling the competitiveness of industries both in Europe and China with their respective climate goals.

CHEERS consortium partners have submitted 6 abstracts to this years’ 10^th TCCS Conference. Along with a general overview of the CHEERS project, the consortium partners will present the developments related to several the development and demonstration of the CLC technology.

The work presented at the conference will include findings related to:

• Natural ore and novel perovskite oxygen carriers for chemical looping,
• Development of a demonstration unit by revamping an existing Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) pilot plant
• The mock-up experimental results of a 1.5 MW equivalent cold mock-up Chemical Looping Combustion unit.

The CHEERS (Chinese-European Emission-Reducing Solutions) project is financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 764697 together with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and Chinese industry.

On April 9^th, the EU and China reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen their partnership in various areas, including climate related research and development. The CHEERS project is a good example of such close collaboration and knowledge-exchange between Chinese and European partners.

The 21^st EU-China summit was held in Brussels, Belgium on April 2019. During the summit, European and Chinese leaders discussed mutually beneficial relations and a strengthening of their partnership.

The EU-China summit was held on the 9th April in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: European Commission

In a statement following the summit, the two parties concluded that they ‘’underline their strong commitment to implement the Paris Agreement and the Montreal Protocol’’. Given the urgency to respond to climate change, both the EU and China aim to ‘’further intensify their cooperation on the basis of the 2018 joint Leaders’ Statement on Climate Change and Clean Energy[1]’’. During the summit, both EU and Chinese delegations stated that they will reinforce ‘’their climate-related cooperation to advance the international climate negotiations process and in areas like carbon markets, long-term development strategies, clean energy and energy efficiency, low emission transport and cities’’[2]^,[3].

The CHEERS project is already a successful example of such cooperation. With 9 participating organisations both from the EU and China, it has contributed to research-related cooperation between the EU and China in the field of Carbon Capture and Storage. Over the past year, academics, research institutions and industrial partners of this consortium have authored a number of scientific publications presented at different international conferences.

The first phase of CHEERS consortium will finish by July 2019. A major achievement of this phase is design, construction and successful operation of a cold mock-up of the of the Chemical Looping Combustion technology with identical design as the demonstration plant.

The successful progress of CHEERS project will be a step toward clean industry, helping both EU and China reach their climate goals.

The CHEERS (Chinese-European Emission-Reducing Solutions) project is financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 764697 together with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and Chinese industry.

[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/39020/euchina-joint-statement-9april2019.pdf

[2] https://cdn1-eeas.fpfis.tech.ec.europa.eu/cdn/farfuture/rVotT71TqcUuInsE7VOb7j1_xi9jIMcvhhHxcYLGE1g/mtime:1552379624/sites/eeas/files/factsheet_eu-china_03_2019.pdf

[3] http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/china/docs/eu-china_2020_strategic_agenda_en.pdf