| Summary: | China has been building at least 50GW of new coal‐fired power plants every year since 2004. Previous carbon capture and storage (CCS) research has mainly focussed on technology improvements or stakeholder opinion surveys, without picturing the overall concerns and barriers for deploying such technology in China. This thesis therefore explores the engineering and policy requirements to implement CCS and CO2 Capture Ready (CCR) in Chinese coal‐fired power plants, key enablers for future deployment. A preliminary study of the Chinese gasification industry shows there are early opportunities to capture carbon dioxide from gasification plants. However, as power from conventional pulverised coal (PC) accounts for the majority of electricity generated in China, the most promising emission reduction method for China could be through implementation of CCS technology in large PC plants. An investigation of the current PC plant layouts and operating parameters has been carried out during the course of the study. The results show that, in the absence of CCR designs, a large fraction of such new coal power plants built within the next decade could face ‘carbon lock-in’. A site specific system model using ASPEN Plus to demonstrate the possible changes that could be applied to an existing power plant and a retrofit plant is included in the study. A capture ready power plant site selection method has also been developed, to identify possible sites and to aid understanding of the criteria that should be considered when planning a capture ready plant. A case study of a capture ready power plant in Guangdong province, China shows the benefit of regional planning. Finally, the result of the first stakeholder perception survey on making new coal‐fired plants CCR, conducted in early 2010, are presented and analysed. Evidence for a supportive attitude towards CCR could indicate that this may be a route to early commercial demonstration of CCS in China.
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