Barriers and incentives of CCS deployment in China: Results from semi-structured interviews

From March to July of 2008, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 31 experts from the Chinese government, scientific institutes and industrial sectors. This paper summarizes the experts’ opinions and draws conclusions about four crucial aspects that influence CO2 capture and storage (CCS) deployment in China: technology research and experience accumulation, finance support, market development and policy and system. According to interviews result, technological improvement is necessary to cut down on CO2 capture cost and decrease technological uncertainty. Then, to make some rational policies and systems, with elements such as a carbon tax and clean electricity pricing, to drive power plants to adopt CO2 capture technology. Furthermore, financial incentive in both the long term and the short term, such as subsidies and CDM, will be important for CCS incentives, encouraging enterprises’ enthusiasm for CCS and their capacity to enact it. Lastly, CCS deployment should be conducted under a market-oriented framework in the long term, so a business model and niche market deployment should be considered in advance. Among these aspects, policy and system is more complex than other three aspects, to resolve this obstacle, the innovation on electricity market and government decision model for climate change is crucial.