Alstom and Statoil Capture Natural Gas

French based manufacturer Alstom has signed a joint development contract with Norwegian oil company Statoil to launch a 5MW CO2 capture demonstration plant at Karlshamn Power Plant in southern Sweden.

The demonstration plant will use Alstom's chilled ammonia-based technology and is expected to begin operation in 2008. Both companies plan to introduce the technology in other Swedish power plants after technical evaluation.

The chilled ammonia technology uses ammonia to capture CO2 emissions that would normally escape into the atmosphere and can potentially achieve CO2 capture economically and with low energy loss.

Alstom says the development of this technology is an important milestone towards reducing power industry carbon emissions.