3 Decarbonization strategies you should know

As industrial activities continue to grow, there are more greenhouse gas emissions than our planet system can absorb, resulting in climate impacts. Because of this, since the 1990s many global climate-related agreements have taken place, two of them were the Paris Agreement (which replaced the Kyoto Protocol), and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.?

Not only governments, but investors are worried about environmental issues, and carbon taxes are increasingly being adopted by countries around the world, which can make it less likely to invest in the industrial sector that still uses fossil fuels. Still, to get zero emissions and stop climate change can be an expensive long-term plan, or so it is believed.

How to achieve a decarbonized operation in the industry

Of course, some of the decarbonization strategies will be more expensive, but there are some decarbonization options more budget-friendly for industries. One thing is right: renewable energy can’t do it alone. Decarbonization must be a multiple set of strategies in order to achieve the goals. Here are some of those strategies:?

1. Energy Efficiency?

One of the most adopted forms of decarbonization is to invest in energy efficiency strategies, as the less energy you need, the less carbon emission you will make as well. According to research made by IEA (International Energy Agency) in 2017, energy efficiency can reduce global electric demand by more than 20% while maintaining high levels of services.?

Some practical applications to increase energy efficiency are to install sensors and connect them to software to analyze the energy consumption. A work undertaken for the Made Smarter Review (Maier, Made Smarter Review, 2017) found that the adoption of digitalization technologies could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.5% while increasing manufacturing growth between 1.5% and 3% a year.

2. Carbon Capture??

The CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) or CCUS (Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage) strategy has been increasingly growing in the industrial sector. Very talked-about in the last few years in conferences such as Future Oil and Gas, held in 2021, “carbon capture and storage” is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it for centuries.?

Basically, CO2 is captured from industries, such as chemical industries, for example, and stored in an underground geological formation. More than mitigating climate change, this process can also enhance oil recovery. Although this process can be more expensive than the others, governments such as the UK are investing in this strategy to zero carbon emissions:??

We have already committed to a ￡1 billion CCS Infrastructure Fund to provide the industry with the certainty required to deploy CCUS at pace and scale, alongside a ￡240 million Net Zero Hydrogen Fund - Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, March 2021.?

3. Nuclear energy

It might sound weird, but most zero-carbon power comes from nuclear plants. It is not about building new ones but using those that are already built.?

Besides helping to decrease carbon emissions, those plants are very efficient, generating more energy than solar or wind power together, at least according to World Resources Institute:?

It could take 10 years or more to build enough renewable energy plants to replace an existing zero-carbon power source—a lost decade when the world is in a race against time.

Although there’s a tendency to dismiss those plants, nuclear energy can act as an important energy source until we had built enough renewable energy plants to replace them.

Therefore, to decarbonize the industrial sector, we will need a mix of technologies and strategies well planned and with mitigation actions starting by now. Digitalization is one of the options with lower costs and can be done in a short period of time. If you want to learn more about how digitalization is improving this process, I highly recommend this content: Renewables, Decarbonization and Digital Twin: the path to Industrial Sustainable Growth in 2022