Overview of Carbon Capture, Utilisation & Storage
Abstract
While numerous initiatives have concentrated on decarbonisation to counteract the threat of climate change brought by the atmospheric release of carbon dioxide, this greenhouse gas has progressively become widely employed in science and engineering. Carbon Capture Usage and Storage technology remains one of the many possible pathways to combat the normative Net Zero Emissions by 2050 challenge. This article assimilates ideas from various research publications & case reports and, complements the essence with current data & trends with the intent of deriving an elementary knowledge of carbon capture & usage and emphasising how this technology provides a hedge?as the energy sector undergoes transition.
Government policies, regulatory frameworks, subsidies, financing support, attractive carbon pricing, etc. can impede a potential carbon capture facility developer. Recognising the benefits of the sharing economy as a possible means to make the capture, transport, utilisation & storage more commercially viable and scalable, this article cites the creation of cross-industry hubs and clusters for colocation of capture facilities. The article impresses upon the Circular Carbon Economy (CCE) - a workable alternative development model based on more efficient use of natural resources. Through a closed loop involving the 4R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle, remove), the CCE strategy maximises the benefits from all energy sources and, minimises the greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.
Finally, this article highlights key opportunities and deliberations for the oil & gas industry and, accentuates the need to embrace Carbon Capture, Usage & Storage technology as one of the imminent strategies to mitigate climate change.
Catching up with Net Zero 2050
Global warming, which leads to drastic climate change, is largely influenced by CO2 emissions and concentration. Following the update released by the European Commission’s joint project Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) in September 2023, CO2?emissions make up a staggering 72% of the total emissions – resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels of which coal makes up 44%, oil 32% and natural gas 22%. To comply with the UNFCCC, nations are creating national emissions inventories and recommending and putting into practice mitigation measures for greenhouse gas emissions.
?The global CO2 emissions in 2022 were 182 times higher than they were in 1850 when the industrial revolution was underway”
Source - World Resource Institute
However, CO2?emissions are still increasing at the world level despite climate change mitigation agreements. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 required only developed countries to reduce emissions, but the Paris Climate Change Agreement 2015 recognises climate change as a shared responsibility of all countries. As a major source of global emissions, the energy sector holds the key to responding to the world’s climate challenge of bringing its global energy-related CO2 emissions to net zero (NZE) and limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 deg C.
While the landscape of emissions continues to change, countries in developing Asia now account for around half of global emissions. Can the CO2 emissions be reduced (prevented), and the released CO2 be recycled (captured) and reused (stored as an inventory to regenerate energy)? The answer is yes, and carbon capture technology is currently in practice amid challenges and its transport & storage are extensively researched as a mitigation pathway to reduce CO2 emission. Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (hereafter referred to as CCS) is only one of the methods of preventing CO2 from entering our atmosphere.
“The potential of CO2 capture and storage is considerable, and the costs for mitigating climate change can be decreased compared to strategies where only other climate change mitigation options are considered”
Source - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Alongside CCS, we will have to dramatically change how we produce energy by transitioning to solar & wind power, reducing the conversion of natural ecosystems, phasing out coal, using hydrogen fuel, bringing more energy efficiency, improving sustainable forest management etc. More importantly, as individuals, we must shift to a 1.5 deg C lifestyle to reduce our carbon footprint - change our food consumption, choose green housing, and shift to sustainable mobility & mindful leisure. Carbon capture provides a technological hedge?as the energy sector undergoes transition and two-thirds of carbon capture will need to happen in developing countries by 2050.
Carbon Capture, Utilisation & Sequestration
CCS or Carbon capture, use, and sequestration (read storage) is an engineering approach to limit global warming and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Using various technologies of capture, CO2 can either be directly captured from the atmosphere or can be separated from the other flue gases coming out of emissions point sources such as cement and steel industries, fossil or biomass-fuelled oil & gas refineries, power stations, etc. up to an optimum capture level of over 90%. CO2 is thus captured before entering the atmosphere or directly and compressed & transported to the point of use or storage.
The CO2 can be utilised for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), enhanced gas recovery (EGR), polymers, chemically converted to feedstock material such as methane, methanol & urea, in food & beverages, production of building materials and many other applications – some of which are in development stages. Otherwise, the CO2 can be transported by pipeline, ship, rail or truck for permanent storage in underground geological formations such as depleted oil & gas reservoirs or offshore saline aquifers so that it does not contribute to climate change. The adjoining figure shows the value chain of carbon capture (CC), Transport (T) & storage (S) or use (U). Different classes of CCS are carbon positive, carbon neutral and carbon negative CCS facilities.
It is important to recognise the benefits of CCS – for one CCS does not produce or create energy and its main purpose is to avoid climate change by extracting CO2 emissions. Second, CCS can be added to produce low-carbon energy from fossil fuels or be injected into the ground for many years for reuse. CCS can be used to decarbonise the transport sector and other industries such as cement & steel.
Let's take an example of hard-to-abate sectors, particularly the cement and steel industries, to provide a perspective of emissions and carbon capture potential. The world manufactures over 4.2 billion tons of cement and 1.9 billion tons of steel annually. 1 ton each of cement and steel produced roughly emits 800kg and 1.5~3.0 tons of CO2 respectively. For such huge CO2 emissions currently, CCS is the only technological option to help secure deep emissions reductions in cement manufacturing & blast furnace steel making and thus help mitigate the effects of climate change.
A dosage of captured CO2 when injected into concrete during mixing, mineralises with cement as a solid carbonate improving the concrete’s compressive strength and creating a new carbon-negative cement. From the cost per ton CO2 abatement viewpoint, CCS can deliver relatively low-cost emissions reduction. CCS retrofits appear to have both, a low-cost profile and substantial potential in producing low-carbon steel. CCS can be used to decarbonise by producing electricity - to heat homes and hydrogen fuel - to power hydrogen cars. However, the annual global CO2 emissions are far greater than the global CO2 capture.
“The annual global CO2 capture of 70 Mt currently accounts for just 0.19 per cent of annual global emissions of 37 Gt of CO2 in 2023”
Source - International Energy Agency
The below figure is a tabular interpretation of a study published by Global CCS Institute in 2021 that estimates the cost of carbon capture per ton of CO2. The partial pressure of CO2 in flue gas, economies of scale & modularisation, low-cost energy supply, financing support to scale up and technology innovation impact the cost range. After deployment trailing behind initial expectations, more than 400 projects are currently in various stages of development across the CCS value chain.
The main barriers to near-term scale-up of CO2 use are commercial and regulatory rather than technological. For CCS to reach the levels needed to achieve NZE, lowering the costs for transportation and storage in the CCTS value chain is of utmost importance. Market conditions for potential capture plant developers are insufficient to encourage investment. Without an incentive of optimum value on emissions reduction, CCS developers may not incur the costs of setting up and operating plants, although it may be beneficial from a broader societal viewpoint.
If CO2 is not captured at or close to a location for storage or utilisation, transportation will be necessary. There are three main ways to transport CO2; ships, trucks, and pipelines. Of these, pipelines are currently the sole method of transportation that is frequently used for moving big volumes of CO2. The least expensive method is often pipeline, costing between $6 and $10 per tonne/km; trucking is the most expensive. Shipping works cheaper than pipelines over long distances. Still, the best form of transportation depends on volume and distance. Since monitoring systems assess pressure losses, losses are predicted to be small when CO2 is transported by pipeline. Because of the longer transportation chain, shipping and trucks may pose more systemic leakage hazards, albeit this risk can be somewhat reduced by good design.
“With the limited chance of a substantial unintentional CO2 release, CO2 can be safely stored in geological formations under the correct circumstances and with proper regulation”
Depleted oil and gas fields, saline aquifers, basalt formations, and biological shale formations are some subterranean storage options for CO2. Due to their wider geographical distribution and larger theoretical storage resources, saline aquifers are likely to contribute to most future storage capacity, even though exhausted fossil fields are typically favoured for projects today due to their well-understood formations. There are various phases involved in pumping CO2 underground for long-term storage such as compression, injection, containment, trapping and plugging. At roughly $10–20 per tonne, storage expenses are typically much less than capture costs. The only three storage methods that have achieved commercial-scale high technological readiness levels are post-combustion (amine) in power plants, saline deposits and enhanced oil recovery. Geological evaluations show there is enough storage space to hold the amounts of CO2 collection that earlier scenarios call for.
“According to a 2022 study by Energy Transitions Commission, the estimated global CO2 storage capacity exceeds 25,000 Gt”
Academic research and technical feasibility studies suggest the risks of CO2 leakage through naturally occurring pathways and faulty wells are already low and can be reduced to an acceptable level with careful management and strong regulations.
Using the concept of sharing economy and attaining long-term benefits, the creation of cross-industry hubs and facility clusters that pool resources and CCUTS infrastructure among co-located businesses is under progress, as is the mitigation of upfront CAPEX risks that individual emitters cannot bear on their own.? It is very unclear how much CO2 will be used in the future. Building materials have the highest potential to improve climate conditions per tonne of CO2 used, whereas fuels have the greatest potential for CO2 use by volume.
“Although there are other approaches to lowering emissions, CCS has a distinct function from carbon removal in long-term, net-zero climate strategies created by nations or businesses”
The benefits of CO2 use for the climate will differ depending on several variables such as the source of CO2, the product being replaced, and the amount of CO2 retained in the finished good. The deployment of CCTUS is critical; its global capacity will need to scale up over the next two decades if the world is to achieve the overarching target of net zero by 2050 and the developed countries to become carbon negative soon thereafter.
Circular Carbon Economy (CCE)
Carbon Capture Utilisation & Storage is integral to the Circular Carbon Economy (CCE). The CCE approach is an energy strategy that aims at managing and reducing carbon emission through a closed loop system involving 4R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Remove carbon. CCE leads to energy efficiency and can play a critical role in advancing the hard-to-abate sectors towards carbon neutrality. The Circular Carbon Economy model is an integrated and inclusive approach towards the NZE Scenario & encompasses all carbon mitigation options, including Carbon Capture and Storage, that can help achieve Net Zero by 2050.
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Energy transition with 4R perspective will disrupt or replace many current value chains as the transition will drive industries to use raw materials or fuels with very low or zero carbon content (Reduce). This necessitates using sustainable energies, nuclear energy, green hydrogen or its derivatives, biomass, or waste as energy efficiency forms the basis of the transition. IEA finds that energy efficiency measures alone are projected to contribute 40% of the carbon reductions needed to achieve Net Zero.
“CCS includes a broad range of technologies that can be used practically with many sources of carbon dioxide”
New technologies play an important role in a circular carbon economy by converting CO2 into chemicals, fuels & building materials and expanding the current market of 230 million tonnes of CO2 used per year (Reuse). Electricity can be generated using Bioenergy, which can contribute to balancing an electricity grid with a significant share of variable renewables. Bioenergy with CCS – BECCS offers the prospect of negative emissions (Recycle). CCS’s great potential for managing carbon emissions is rooted in its adaptability (Remove). Remove serves as a way to ensure that we can achieve a net carbon balance or net-zero emissions regardless of how much reduce and recycle are deployed.
CCE requires actions and an enabling environment across a broad range of policy areas, regulations, standards, finance and business environments that are conducive to the transition path. Support measures such as competitive procurement and pricing, incentives, capital grants, tax exemptions and investment subsidies are required. Governments are in the driver's seat when it comes to speeding up the energy transition since policy design and ambition, rather than technology, are the main obstacles to progress.
Oil Refineries in 2030 & Beyond
Shifting to a net zero energy is an overarching process that calls for big adjustments to the way energy is generated, distributed and used. The energy transition has reached a critical inflection point; by 2030 and beyond oil refineries will have to significantly change their feedstocks, processes and outputs to meet the normalised demand for petrochemicals & transportation fuels in the short to mid-term, albeit electric vehicle sales picking up, and comply with the regulatory framework of decarbonisation. Energy transition will disrupt or replace many refinery value chains as the transition will drive industries to use raw materials or fuels with very low or zero carbon content to address, direct and indirect emissions. In the long term, production capacity will need to be reduced after 2030 to accommodate the expected decline in demand for transportation fuels due to larger EV penetration. Near-term action for oil & gas refineries will be emissions reduction – methane emissions are one of them, along with the removal of all non-emergency flaring, the use of hydrogen from low-emissions electrolysis in refineries, the electrification of upstream facilities with low-emission electricity, and the outfitting of oil and gas processes with carbon capture, utilisation, and storage technologies. By speeding up the deployment and technical learning for both technologies - scaling up CCUS and increasing the usage of low-emission hydrogen - have complementary roles to play, but also great potential for positive spill-overs into other elements of energy transitions.
There is a variety of ways to commit to pursuit net-zero, each with an implicit or explicit carbon cost, that can be taken into consideration based on a company's goals and declared decarbonisation targets. Refiners will also need to capitalize on the opportunities brought about by the energy transition, including the changing product demand mix, technological advancements in the digital realm, and consumer support for decarbonisation from regulations to succeed.
The energy investment landscape is shifting as we move toward a cleaner and more intelligent future. Understanding the current energy landscape is crucial for making strategic choices. Do we need to invest in a completely new setup or reconfigure with add-ons? What is the best way to maximise our current portfolio by building a coalition with other subject expert companies? How will the carbon tax affect our markets if we continue with hydrocarbon-based fuels? However, lock-in and path dependency may hinder the development & deployment of new technologies.
In their commitment to CCE and to speed up their decarbonisation process, companies such as Técnicas Reunidas are using artificial intelligence & big data as one of the means in seeking innovative solutions in shifting current processes in their client refineries towards carbon-free production. Técnicas Reunidas has expertise in designing and building amine facilities for capturing & storing carbon.
“By implementing complete carbon capture systems, Técnicas Reunidas has been helping clients expedite their energy transition and aiding in their transformation processes”
Refineries will have to embrace the change and, sooner rather than later, make the required adjustments. The companies that can maintain their profitability in the face of industrial challenges—such as the depletion of demand, the tangible effects of climate change, the expense of carbon pricing regulations, and mounting regulatory pressure—will cross the chasm. For some time now, the oil and gas sector has used carbon capture as a decarbonisation strategy. Nevertheless, many have been discouraged from proceeding with deployment also due to cost and space constraints. Initiatives for carbon capture are becoming more and more significant for the oil and gas sector.
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plant layout and piping
7 个月Insightful and more futuristic on CCUS.
SAP ABAP Consultant
7 个月Usha Dharwatkar Amazing article on closing the loop with Carbon emissions.. very insightful and futuristic! Please write more on this topic and make world a better place to live :)
Srishti Architects and Sustainable Design studio & Partner at Vastu-Shilp Architects
7 个月Very well written and researched.. ??
Staff Product Manager @ Intuit | GTM | Martech automation, genAI
7 个月Very insightful, thanks for sharing!