ALBERTA

Australian Coal firm appeals rejection of Grassy Mountain open-pit mine

Ian Vandaelle, BNN Bloomberg

The company behind a proposal to build a massive open-pit coal mine along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains is appealing a regulatory decision that halted the development last month.

Australia-based Benga Mining Limited said Monday it launched a legal appeal process to dispute the rejection of the Grassy Mountain steelmaking coal mine by a joint provincial-federal review panel, taking issue with a number of the panel’s findings.

Benga Chief Executive Officer John Wallington said in a release the company disagreed with the Joint Review Panel (JRP) and Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) methodology and conclusion, including Benga’s view that the regulators did not properly take into account First Nations’ support for the project. 

"After careful and thorough review of the JRP's report, Benga believes that the AER's conclusions and reasons contain material errors of law and contraventions of procedural fairness," Wallington said. 

"Among the reasoning in its report, the AER dismissed the full support of the relevant First Nations without consultation, demonstrated a lack of familiarity with the provincial royalty regime, and gave preference to non-expert layman analysis over expert, science-based evidence.”

The proposed mine would have had 4.5 million tonnes of processed coal capacity per year over a mine life of 25 years. One quarter of Grassy Mountain would sit on previously-mined land which Benga said was never restored.

If approved, the project would have created 500 jobs during the construction phase and 385 full-time jobs, Benga said. The company plans to file an affidavit and memorandum of argument to support its appeal in the coming weeks.

The proposed project, about 160 kilometres south of Calgary, sits on Treaty 7 territory. During the initial hearings, the project had the support of all the First Nations whose territories encompassed the project’s proposed footprint.

While the joint review panel acknowledged that Benga had signed agreements will all 14 First Nations and Métis groups that reside in close proximity to the project and had no objection to Grassy Mountain, the JRP said that did not outweigh the environmental impacts of the development.

The panel said that such a project would likely result in “significant adverse environmental effects” on surface water quality, the westslope cutthroat trout habitat and vegetation, among other concerns. The panel also said that in its view Grassy Mountain overstated the potential royalty payments it would generate over the life of the mine, an assertion Benga disputes.

Since 2009, 11 oil sands and coal mining projects have gone through the regulatory oral hearing process, with eight being approved, three withdrawn and none rejected.

The project has emerged as a flashpoint between industry and environmental advocates in the wake of a 2020 decision by Alberta to end a decades-long ban on coal mining in the area. That reversal of the 1976 coal policy opened the door for resumption of mining in the Crowsnest Pass area, where coal was once the lifeblood of the region's economy.

TransAlta completes second of three planned Alberta plant conversions to natural gas

CALGARY -- TransAlta Corp. has taken another step in its goal of becoming carbon neutral by converting the second of three planned coal-to-gas conversions at its Alberta Thermal power generation facilities near Wabamun.

The conversion of Keephills Unit 2 to natural gas is part of the Calgary company's plan to entirely generate clean energy in Alberta by the end of the year.

TransAlta has said it wants to reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent, or 19.7 million tonnes by 2030 over 2015 levels and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Chief executive John Kousinioris says the latest conversion maintains its current generation capacity and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than half to about 0.51 tonnes CO2e per MWh.

The Keephills conversion cost $31.5 million while another $64.7 million was spent on system upgrades, gas infrastructure and maintenance projects.

It was the second conversion project after Sundance Unit 6 was converted in February. Keephills Unit 3 will be converted later this year.

"This not only highlights TransAlta's commitment to meet Alberta's need for safe, reliable and low-cost electricity but also our commitment to meet our sustainability goals focused on clean electricity generation," stated Kousinioris.

CLEAN POWER
Report: 30 Million Solar Homes Would Create 1.77 Million Jobs, $69 Billion In Energy Savings


Installing a low-income community solar array with students from Leech Lake Tribal College in Minnesota. Photo credit: Jason Edens

ByJohn Farrell
Originally published at ILSR.org

Our new report finds that installing rooftop solar panels and community solar systems to serve the equivalent of 30 million American homes would create significant economic benefits — including 1.77 million jobs and $69 billion electricity bill savings over the next five years — while addressing the climate crisis and historic inequities.

The report, “The National Impact of 30 Million Solar Homes: A Vision for an Equitable Economic Recovery Built on Climate Protection and Energy Democracy,” builds on federal policy recommendations developed by the Initiative for Energy Justice, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and Solar United Neighbors as part of the 30 Million Solar Homes campaign.

In addition to creating 1.77 million new solar jobs and reducing energy bills by $69 billion, the report found that enacting the 30 Million Solar Homes policies would over five years:

Eliminate global warming air pollution equivalent to closing 48 coal-burning power plants or taking 42 million cars off the road for a year.

Increase new solar capacity nationally by 151 GW.

Power the equivalent of 20 million households in marginalized communities with local solar.

In the report, these economic and environmental benefits are broken down by state and congressional district. An interactive map further illustrates the local impacts of the 30 Million Solar Homes proposal and gives viewers an opportunity to share the report with their elected officials.

There is already broad-based support for this campaign. More than 330 energy equity, climate, business, environmental, faith, and public health organizations signed a letter to Congress urging the adoption of the 30 Million Solar Homes federal policy recommendations. These recommendations include expanding solar access through low-income energy assistance, making federal solar energy tax credits more equitable, and supporting federal financing and grant programs for local solar deployment. A majority of the federal investments would benefit historically marginalized communities, including environmental justice communities and low- and moderate-income communities.

The report, the interactive map, and other resources are also available on the 30 Million Solar Homes campaign website.

 

Making clean hydrogen is hard, but researchers just solved a major hurdle

by University of Texas at Austin

The team's experimental water-splitting apparatus. Credit: Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

For decades, researchers around the world have searched for ways to use solar power to generate the key reaction for producing hydrogen as a clean energy source—splitting water molecules to form hydrogen and oxygen. However, such efforts have mostly failed because doing it well was too costly, and trying to do it at a low cost led to poor performance

Now, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have found a low-cost way to solve one half of the equation, using sunlight to efficiently split off oxygen molecules from water. The finding, published recently in Nature Communications, represents a step forward toward greater adoption of hydrogen as a key part of our energy infrastructure.

As early as the 1970s, researchers were investigating the possibility of using solar energy to generate hydrogen. But the inability to find materials with the combination of properties needed for a device that can perform the key chemical reactions efficiently has kept it from becoming a mainstream method.

"You need materials that are good at absorbing sunlight and, at the same time, don't degrade while the water-splitting reactions take place," said Edward Yu, a professor in the Cockrell School's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "It turns out materials that are good at absorbing sunlight tend to be unstable under the conditions required for the water-splitting reaction, while the materials that are stable tend to be poor absorbers of sunlight. These conflicting requirements drive you toward a seemingly inevitable tradeoff, but by combining multiple materials—one that efficiently absorbs sunlight, such as silicon, and another that provides good stability, such as silicon dioxide—into a single device, this conflict can be resolved."

However, this creates another challenge—the electrons and holes created by absorption of sunlight in silicon must be able to move easily across the silicon dioxide layer. This usually requires the silicon dioxide layer to be no more than a few nanometers, which reduces its effectiveness in protecting the silicon absorber from degradation.

The key to this breakthrough came through a method of creating electrically conductive paths through a thick silicon dioxide layer that can be performed at low cost and scaled to high manufacturing volumes. To get there, Yu and his team used a technique first deployed in the manufacturing of semiconductor electronic chips. By coating the silicon dioxide layer with a thin film of aluminum and then heating the entire structure, arrays of nanoscale "spikes" of aluminum that completely bridge the silicon dioxide layer are formed. These can then easily be replaced by nickel or other materials that help catalyze the water-splitting reactions.

Graphic shows the basic geometry and functionality of the photoanode device. Credit: Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

When illuminated by sunlight, the devices can efficiently oxidize water to form oxygen molecules while also generating hydrogen at a separate electrode and exhibit outstanding stability under extended operation. Because the techniques employed to create these devices are commonly used in manufacturing of semiconductor electronics, they should be easy to scale for mass production.

The team has filed a provisional patent application to commercialize the technology.

Improving the way hydrogen is generated is key to its emergence as a viable fuel source. Most hydrogen production today occurs through heating steam and methane, but that relies heavily on fossil fuels and produces carbon emissions.

There is a push toward 'green hydrogen' which uses more environmentally friendly methods to generate hydrogen. And simplifying the water-splitting reaction is a key part of that effort.

Hydrogen has potential to become an important renewable resource with some unique qualities. It already has a major role in significant industrial processes, and it is starting to show up in the automotive industry. Fuel cell batteries look promising in long-haul trucking, and hydrogen technology could be a boon to energy storage, with the ability to store excess wind and solar energy produced when conditions are ripe for them.

Going forward, the team will work to improve the efficiency of the oxygen portion of water-splitting by increasing the reaction rate. The researchers' next major challenge is then to move on to the other half of the equation.

"We were able to address the oxygen side of the reaction first, which is the more challenging part," Yu said, "but you need to perform both the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions to completely split the water molecules, so that's why our next step is to look at applying these ideas to make devices for the hydrogen portion of the reaction."

New porous material promising for making renewable energy from water

More information: Soonil Lee et al, Scalable, highly stable Si-based metal-insulator-semiconductor photoanodes for water oxidation fabricated using thin-film reactions and electrodeposition, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24229-y

Journal information: Nature Communicatio

Provided by University of Texas at Austin 

Oil and gas emissions could risk 'killing concept of blue hydrogen', warns Equinor vice president

Production of fully decarbonised gas will require the use of renewable energy and further emissions reductions throughout the value chain

Blue hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture and storage is often criticised because it is not a fully zero-emission outcome.

Old ways: flaring by-pass gas at a Rosneft-operated field in West Siberia, Russia

Photo: EURASIA.EXPERT

In an interview with Upstream's sister publication Recharge, Equinor vice president of low-carbon technology Henrik Solgaard Andersen acknowledged that a more comprehensive low-emission solution needs to be found.

At present, it is only possible to capture up to 98% of carbon dioxide emitted in the process of methane reforming, although levels of around 90% are seen as a more realistic of industry practice

However, the entire blue hydrogen value chain is also likely to produce significant greenhouse gas emissions unless efforts are purposely taken to reduce them.

Almost every stage of the process — from extracting natural gas to transporting it, compressing the hydrogen, and capturing the CO2 and moving it to storage — has potential for CO2 emissions, either directly or indirectly from the use of fossil-fuel power, and leakage of methane is also a constant risk.


ExxonMobil joins Acorn carbon capture and storage project in ScotlandRead more

To make blue hydrogen a truly low-carbon solution, critics say, all the electricity used throughout the value chain should come from renewable sources, CO2 emissions from gas flaring must be eliminated and stringent monitoring would be needed to ensure minimal leakage of methane.

“These [emission-reduction solutions] must be implemented in the gas industry to make blue hydrogen a long-term option," says Andersen. “Otherwise upstream emissions will kill the concept [of blue hydrogen].”

He explains: “I’m always honest saying that if we talk about a weakness of blue hydrogen it’s the upstream emissions. So it's key that the natural gas you're providing for blue hydrogen has low emissions and that means both in terms of CO2 and methane leakages.”

The Dane says that strict regulations in Norway have required Equinor to spend time and money on reducing its upstream methane and CO2 emissions, including powering some of its offshore platforms from shore using hydroelectricity and recycling excess gas down to the reservoir, rather than flaring.

“That means, in fact, the offshore emissions [at such platforms] are close to zero, and that’s the same type of solutions you need when you’re sourcing other types of natural gas,” he says.

“So when you are, let’s say, using Russian gas, that needs to be compressed all the way from Yamal [in northwest Siberia] to the UK; you need to use renewable power when you do the recompression, otherwise you would just add a lot of CO2 emissions.

“And when you are importing LNG, you need to make sure the LNG production has CCS [because the liquefaction process separates out any CO2 present in the natural gas] like we do in Norway at Snohvit.”

"Not rocket science"

Andersen says that reducing upstream emissions is not “rocket science” — all gas companies could reduce them if they chose to, but that would require them to accept additional costs.

“We have electrified a lot of our offshore installations, so we're using a lot of renewable power to drive all our rotating equipment on offshore platforms; we are implementing CCS.

"When it comes to maritime sectors we also — because we are running a lot of vessels globally — are looking into replacing that with less carbon intensive fuels, of course, [over the] long term, ammonia or biofuels. In methane leakage, we have implemented a lot of different methodologies and processes to avoid leakages, both during start-ups and shutdowns and critical operations where these things can happen.


UK industrial cluster says blue hydrogen needed now to reach net-zero goalsRead more

“These are not rocket science. It's more like a cost issue. People must be willing to take that potential extra cost to implement it.”
Total capture?

Andersen stresses that 100% carbon capture from methane reforming is not physically possible.

“In these blue hydrogen processes, there will always be some CO2 remaining because they are catalytic processes,” Andersen says.

“So they are driven by what we call catalytic equilibrium, reaction equilibrium, and you can never get 100% conversion, that is more or less impossible when it comes to the laws of nature. But we believe with the best technology, we can achieve maybe up to 97% to 98%.”

He puts it in more simple terms by explaining the difficulties of capturing carbon dioxide from the flue gas at a natural-gas-fired power plant.

“The pressure is very low and the CO2 concentration is very low... so it’s very difficult. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. And the more [CO2] you take out, the smaller the needle gets to find the rest [of the CO2]. And finally, you can't get it.

“In a blue hydrogen plant, it's high-pressure CO2. So we have many more needles initially, and that's why you can capture much more CO2 in a blue hydrogen plant compared to a post-combustion plant, because the pressure is so high, so you can get down to [97% to 98%].”

According to a recent report by the UK’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, entitled The Case for Blue Hydrogen, the standard method of grey hydrogen production from natural gas — steam methane reforming (SMR) — can only capture 90% of CO2 emissions.

A slightly more expensive process, known as autothermal reforming (ATR), which requires the addition of pure oxygen, can capture 98%, it says.


Learning the hard way: Energy giants leap forward with transition, but could have been swifterRead more

Andersen explains that Equinor has not yet decided which of these two process it would use to produce blue hydrogen, but it would probably go with ATR.

“What we see is that for smaller scale and medium scale sizes, SMR will be the best solution. But when it comes to bigger scale, towards the 1 gigawatt [size], ATR is the more cost efficient solution.”
How blue hydrogen could become net zero

Andersen says that even though blue hydrogen is not intrinsically a net-zero solution, it could become one through the addition of carbon-neutral biogas, which is produced by fermenting plant matter inside huge tanks known as anaerobic digesters.

“One concept we have been working on, which we published a year and a half ago, is to add biogas — a carbon-neutral component — into the natural gas. So when you capture [the CO2 that was absorbed by the plant matter as it grew], it becomes carbon-negative. Maybe [adding] 5% in total will also cover potential upstream emissions.”

(A version of this article first appeared in Upstream's sister publication Recharge on 15 July, 2021)(Copyright)

World's First Offshore Green Hydrogen Plant Built on French Coast

Offshore hydrogen plants will utilize abundant water and connect to offshore wind turbines.

By Chris Young

Jul 19, 2021

Centrale Nantes


An offshore hydrogen production plant is scheduled to start operation next year off the coast of France, a press statement explains.

The plant, which will be powered by electricity from a nearby floating wind turbine, called Floatgen, will be installed at the SEM-REV demonstration site, off the coast of Le Croisic in France.

Once it is operational, it will be the world's first offshore green hydrogen production facility. The project is being developed by green hydrogen firm Lhyfe and French engineering school Centrale Nantes.

The SEM-REV demonstration site has "harsh environmental conditions," Centrale Nantes' press statement says, meaning it is ideal for validating offshore hydrogen production technology.

"We are convinced that offshore production of renewable hydrogen is a perfectly suitable solution for the massive deployment of hydrogen that is on the horizon," said Matthieu Guesné, CEO and founder of Lhyfe.

"We are making great strides forward in our development and are determined to be the first in the world to deploy a solution for offshore renewable hydrogen production," he continued.
The great potential of offshore wind and hydrogen

As the water needed for the electrolysis process for hydrogen production is available in unlimited amounts out at sea, and the new production plant can be hooked up to offshore wind turbines, it has great potential to scale for eventual industrial-scale deployment.

The production plant will go into operation in 2022, after which, all going to plan, the technology will move towards large-scale industrial deployment in 2024.

Offshore wind turbines and hydrogen technologies have the potential to help countries reach their climate change goals over the coming years. In particular, green hydrogen cars, alongside electric vehicles (EVs), could greatly reduce our reliance on gas-guzzling internal combustion engines.


However, the debate over the validity of hydrogen vehicles in a landscape that has so far been dominated by electrification is ongoing, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk labeling hydrogen cars as a "staggeringly dumb form of energy storage for cars."

Despite Musk's assertion, other automakers, including BMW, are backing hydrogen technologies, and Toyota has set a world record by driving its Mirai hydrogen car 623 miles (1,000 km) on one fill.

With companies such as GE developing new offshore turbine technologies with a view to allowing wind farms to go further out to sea, hydrogen and wind energy could be a match made in heaven.

GREENHOUSE GASES
The life-or-death race to improve carbon capture
The technology works, but we’ll need better chemistry and engineering to reach the scale required to avoid a climate disaster

by Craig Bettenhausen
July 18, 2021 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 99, Issue 26

C&EN | Chemistry news from around the world (acs.org)

Credit: National Carbon Capture Center | A solvent tower at the National Carbon Capture Center, a research facility near Birmingham, Alabama


Carbon capture isn’t about saving Earth. Earth is a wet rock floating through space; it doesn’t care if we drown our coastal cities or turn our farmland into desert. Rather, carbon capture is one of the technologies we will need if we want Earth to continue to be a tolerable place for humans to live.

IN BRIEF


The carbon-capture chemistry we have today is too expensive. It works, and it makes economic sense in a few settings. But to meet the global-consensus goal of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and dodge the worst consequences of climate change, we need to deploy more than 150 times as much carbon-capture capacity as we have now. That means reducing costs and making more options available for a wide range of CO2 emission sources. Read on about the growing number of businesses, government labs, nonprofits, and academic researchers racing to bring the next generation of carbon-capture technology up to scale and into the market.


In 2020, we sent 40 billion metric tons (t) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere. We need to cut that number to 0 by 2050 if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If we don’t, the natural systems that keep Earth’s climate relatively peaceful and comfortable will start to tip. The shift will be chaotic, and the new normal might not be conducive to life as we know it.


To reach net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, we need an all-of-the-above approach. Efficiency improvements can reduce our energy needs, and renewable and nuclear power may eventually be able to supply enough electricity for our homes, offices, and cars. But nuclear power is expensive and lacks public support, and renewables are struggling to find the land they need to be deployed at scale. On top of that, activities such as aviation and iron smelting are currently impossible to carry out commercially without releasing CO2.


That’s where carbon capture comes in. Removing carbon dioxide from point sources such as the flue gas of power plants and locking it away underground can be a big part of the path to net zero. Related technologies known as direct air capture can remove CO2 that is already in the ambient air. But all of it depends on carbon capture getting a lot bigger, cheaper, and more efficient—and doing so quickly.

SLOW START


Capturing the CO2 from power plants’ flue gas is where most of the action is. “Decarbonization of the power sector becomes the backbone that the decarbonization of the rest of the economy happens on,” says John Northington, director of the National Carbon Capture Center, a research facility near Birmingham, Alabama.

WHAT’S YOUR GAS STREAM?

Different emission sources require different carbon-capture methods.

Ammonia, ethanol, natural gas processing: Emit gas streams with more than 80% CO2. The CO2 is captured with compression and dehydration, membranes, or physical solvents.

Chemical plants, iron, steel and paper mills: Emit gas streams with 15–80% CO2. The CO2 can be captured with physical solvents, solid sorbents, or membranes.

Coal and natural gas power plants and boilers: Emit gas streams with less than 15% CO2. The CO2 can be captured with chemical solvents.

Ambient air: Has a CO2 concentration around 0.041%. The CO2 can be captured with metal-organic frameworks or chemical systems.

Sources: Global CCS Institute, National Petroleum Council.


But just one commercial power plant has carbon capture: the coal-fired Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan, which captures 1 million t of CO2 per year on one of its four generators. Carbon capture elsewhere on other industrial processes, such as natural gas production, adds another 27 plants and gathers 25 million t per year. Not nearly enough.


The people developing the technology that will make capturing carbon practical have gained unlikely allies in the past couple of years: the oil and gas companies responsible for the lion’s share of CO2 emissions. Though these firms have had their eyes on carbon capture for some time, Northington says, they’re investing serious money in it now.


Data from the patent research firm Patent Seekers bear that notion out. Oil companies have gotten the largest number of carbon-capture patents in recent years, followed by government agencies and research institutes, universities, and engineering and technology companies.


Klaus Lackner, an engineering professor working on direct air capture at Arizona State University, says the change in attitude is a result of pressure from two directions: competition from cheap renewable energy and public demand for low-carbon options. Major changes are coming to the energy market, Lackner says. “The question isn’t ‘Will we have a transition?’ We will. The Exxons and Shells and other companies have to figure out how to make it through that transition. Their business model falls apart if you can’t have liquid fuels.”


Lackner says he’s been pushing fossil fuel companies on this point for years, telling them, “Your societal license to dump CO2 into the air will go away. You need to figure out how to operate without needing that license.”


Matt Steyn, a senior adviser with the advocacy wing of the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), a carbon-capture-and-storage think tank, says the change is also driven by the scientific consensus expressed by the IPCC and the International Energy Agency. “The target has been set; the timeline has been set,” he says. The conversation has shifted from “What do we do?” to “How do we do it?”
As we deploy more plants, costs will come down, just as they have done in every other sector.
Steve Oldham, CEO, Carbon Engineering


Carbon capture of all types is a gas-separation problem. The goal is pure CO2, ideally at high pressure so it can go into a pipeline and be injected safely underground. For some industrial processes, the capture technology available today works fine. In ammonia and corn ethanol plants, for example, the gas exiting exhaust pipes is 80% or more CO2 and just needs to be dried and compressed for transport.


As the CO2 in emissions gets more dilute, the energy required to extract it rises. The emissions coming from steel plants and many chemical processes tend to be between 15 and 80% CO2. The flue gas from fossil fuel combustion in air, such as in coal or natural gas–fired power plants, is generally less than 15% CO2.

CAPTURE WITH SOLVENTS

Carbon dioxide–rich flue gas flows up a contact tower and mixes with a solvent that is trickling down (left). Reduced-CO₂ gas vents from the top, while CO₂-rich solvent exits at the bottom and flows to the top of a stripping tower. There, the solvent is heated, usually by steam, as it trickles down. The heat forces the CO₂ out of solution and up to a collection system. The refreshed solvent heads back to the contact tower to start again

.
Credit: Adapted from CO2CRC


Ironically, oil companies are some of the biggest practitioners of carbon capture today because they use solvents, membranes, and other technologies to remove CO2 from natural gas deposits found in locations such as Russia and west Texas. When they use or sell that CO2 instead of venting it, that counts as carbon capture. That’s why ExxonMobil can claim to capture more CO2 than any other company, even if it uses most of that to push more oil out of the ground.


Amine-based extraction systems developed for natural gas processing have been adapted for other CO2 sources, such as the power plant in Saskatchewan, but the energy cost of using such systems on more dilute streams is crushingly high. Second-generation solvent systems are poised to come to market next, followed by membranes and solid sorbents. And numerous innovative and experimental approaches are racing to catch up.


Syrie Crouch, vice president for carbon capture and storage at Shell, which built the Saskatchewan plant, says deploying capture where it’s simple is an important start. US ethanol makers, for example, capture only 3 million t of the 43 million t of CO2 their plants produce each year. “The key is to capture that lowest-hanging fruit first and then work on down the cost curve,” she says.


INCUMBENT AMINES


The most mature carbon-capture technologies today use solvents. These systems pump emissions through a solution that absorbs CO2 but lets through other gases, such as nitrogen. The CO2-rich solvent then flows into a boiler, where heat drives the pure CO2 back out of solution. That stripping step is the energy hog.


Though the terminology is harsh to a chemist’s ears, carbon-capture solvents are considered either chemical or physical. Chemical solvents, mostly amines such as the industry standard 30% monoethanolamine in water, get a CO2-solubility boost through reversible chemical reactions with water and CO2 that form carbonates, bicarbonates, and carbamates.


Physical solvents such as methanol rely on intermolecular interactions to dissolve CO2. Companies including Linde, Air Products, and UOP offer such systems commercially. They use less energy than chemical solvents but require high pressures and low temperatures. They’re not suitable for combustion flue gas but have been used for many years to remove CO2 from natural gas.

ALMOST LIKE A FILTER

Membranes separate gas mixtures on the basis of size or chemical properties. Some molecules can pass through, and others cannot.

Credit: Adapted from CO2CRC


Amine solvents have the advantage of being mature technology. The systems are well understood, with well-characterized economics and risk profiles that investors know how to analyze. Dow, Shell, Fluor, and others offer monoethanolamine solutions for carbon capture. Boundary Dam Unit 3 uses amines, as did NRG Energy’s Petra Nova plant in Texas, which captured more than 1 million t of CO2 per year from 2017 until NRG shut it down in 2020.



BASF, Linde, General Electric, and the start-up Carbon Clean are among those working on advanced amines. These systems use chemicals such as piperazine alongside or instead of monoethanolamine to get better stability, kinetics, and thermodynamics. The US Department of Energy recently awarded Linde and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign $47 million to build a 200 t per day pilot facility using an advanced amine solvent from BASF at a coal-fired power plant near Springfield, Illinois.


But capturing CO2 with amines comes at a steep cost. Fitted onto a power plant’s systems, they consume 30–50% of the plant’s energy output. Most experts, including Shell’s Crouch, expect that amine systems can get only 10–20% more efficient. At the same time, amines can seem like a safe bet compared with a next-generation technology. “If you’re making your first investment in carbon capture and storage, you don’t necessarily want to be taking massive risks on something new and untested,” the GCCSI’s Steyn says.

THE NEXT GENERATION


At the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) and the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC), two next-generation carbon-capture technologies that look promising are solid sorbents and membranes.

Credit: Saipem
CO2 Solutions, now part of Saipem, engineered carbonic anhydrase to fit the demands of carbon capture.


The NCCC and ITC sites are essentially coal-fired power plants that can pipe their flue gas into a series of testing bays. The NCCC tests systems at scales from less than 1 t per day up to about 25 t per day; tests at the ITC run between 25 and 450 t per day. The sites, which use a combination of public and private financing, serve as technology development bridges between lab-scale carbon-capture concepts and pilot-scale tests on commercial power plants.


The NCCC’s Northington says the incumbent amine systems can capture carbon at a cost of $60–$65 per metric ton. Advanced amines and other second-generation solvents are about $40 per metric ton. A handful of commercial installations that will use advanced amines are in early-stage engineering now, he says. Solid sorbents, membranes, and other transformational technologies will reach $30 or less per metric ton, he predicts.


“We want choice in the marketplace,” says William Morris, technical director of the ITC. “People are really trying to figure out what works for them, not only in their industry but in their specific circumstance.”


Solid sorbents include zeolites, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), activated carbon, and porous silica particles. They’re often functionalized with amine groups to increase their activity and make them more selective for CO2.
MERRY-GO-ROUND

In Svante's solid-sorbent capture system, flue gas first flows down (left) through a rotating disk loaded with a sorbent material that removes the carbon dioxide. At the next station (right), steam flows through the sorbent, stripping the now-pure CO2 out for collection. A third station (rear) refreshes the sorbent on the way back around to the flue gas station.

Credit: Svante


Generally, solid sorbents have faster absorption kinetics than amines and require less energy to release the CO2 again. They can also hold more CO2 per unit volume than most solvents. That means that solid-sorbent systems can be smaller, reducing capital costs, and can be stripped of their CO2 using vacuum or modest heat.


The start-up Svante forms solid sorbents into large, nanoporous disks divided into slices like a pizza. On a giant turntable, the disk slowly rotates each slice through a flue gas stream, a CO2-stripping module, and one or two sorbent preparation stations. The firm has a 10,000 t per year demonstration plant on a natural gas–fired boiler in Canada. It raised $75 million in February to advance a design for cement plants.


In addition to Svante, ExxonMobil, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, TDA Research, and others are testing solid-sorbent systems for flue gas capture. Shell, which is shifting its R&D to solid sorbents, tested a system that uses amine-functionalized solid sorbents on a wood-burning power plant in Austria; it is now readying a scaled-up test at a manure-to-power plant in the Netherlands. After these trials, Crouch says, Shell will offer the technology on the open market.


Membranes are even further along than solid sorbents, Morris says. Membrane systems use selectively permeable materials that exploit the small chemical and physical differences between CO2 and the rest of a gas mixture to achieve separation. Like amines, membranes are already being used in natural gas processing and other areas where CO2 pressure and content are high.


“The next technology outside of amines that will deploy will be membranes,” Morris predicts. He says membranes are coming fast for capturing CO2 from flue gas at power plants. And Northington expects membranes will play a big role in carbon capture for the chemical industry and heavy manufacturing, which have moderate to high CO2 concentrations.




Getting any new carbon capture technology to market won’t be cheap. Morris says getting a robust set of data from testing at the ITC can cost seven figures. One membrane maker, Membrane Technology and Research (MTR), won $52 million in funding in May from the US Department of Energy to do just that. MTR ran a 20 t per day version of its system for 1,400 h at the NCCC in 2015 and will use the funds to scale it up to 150 t per day in Wyoming. The company expects to demonstrate capture at less than $40 per metric ton.


MTR’s membrane polymers are isoporous, meaning their pores are uniform in size and arranged geometrically, unlike the randomly arranged, multisize pores in most gas-separation membranes. The regular pore pattern lets molecules flow more smoothly through the material, lowering the amount of pressure needed relative to conventional membranes. And a tighter distribution of pore sizes increases selectivity for CO2.


Another membrane maker, Compact Membrane Systems (CMS), also seeks to decrease costs by reducing pressure. CMS uses facilitated transport membranes, which are specialized fluoropolymers coated onto a porous substrate. CEO Erica Nemser likens the mechanism to Tarzan swinging through the jungle on vines. The CO2 is Tarzan, and fluoropolymers decorated with activating groups act as the vines, passing CO2 along, with minimal pressure needed.


The firm’s systems are already being used to separate olefins from paraffins and to remove water and dissolved gases from solvents, oils, and lubricants. The system that will capture CO2 in flue gas will be a modification of one that’s in field trials now for removing CO2 from biomethane. Chemical changes to the fluoropolymer make the membrane selective toward different chemical species, Nemser says.


CMS’s units are built around membrane cartridges about twice the size of a can of spray paint—hence the “compact” in the company’s name. The bigger the gas stream to be treated, the more cartridges the system uses. Chief Technology Officer Hannah Murnen says such modular systems will make carbon capture accessible for a wide range of CO2 point sources. In contrast, the towers needed to mix amine solvents with a gas stream and strip the CO2 out later make economic sense only at enormous scales, she says.


CMS says it will be able to deliver carbon capture for as little as $20 per metric ton. “It’s time for membranes. It’s membranes’ day in the sun,” Murnen says.

TOMORROW’S TECH


Amines may dominate carbon capture today, and membranes and solid sorbents may be right on their heels, but a need this serious—and a market this big—is attracting plenty of other contenders. And a good-enough concept could leap ahead if the people behind it can show it works and is scalable.


Saipem and Chart Industries both hope to adapt technology and equipment already in use in other chemical processes.


In January 2020, Saipem, an energy technology and engineering firm, acquired CO2 Solutions, a start-up that is using enzymes to boost the carbon-capture kinetics of aqueous potassium carbonate. K2CO3 reacts with CO2 and water to form potassium bicarbonate, KHCO3. The bicarbonate solution releases its CO2 at relatively low temperatures—around 75 °C under reduced pressure—meaning it can tap low-grade heat that most industrial processes would waste.


That chemistry has been used to scrub CO2 from the air in submarines and other closed environments and in some high-CO2-concentration settings. The trouble is that the absorption kinetics are too slow for it to work well at flue gas concentrations and pressures; the contact towers would have to be even bigger than those used with amines.


To solve that problem, Saipem catalyzes the reaction with the enzyme carbonic anhydrase. Natural carbonic anhydrase is already one of the fastest enzymes, speeding up the formation of HCO3– by a factor of 107. The team at CO2 Solutions modified the enzyme to make it even faster and keep it active at higher temperatures.


“The first time I saw carbon capture with the enzyme, my jaw just dropped, because the catalyst is magic,” says Richard Surprenant, who came to Saipem from CO2 Solutions and is now commercial manager for carbon-capture technologies.


Any industrial or postcombustion application is fair game for the firm’s technology, Surprenant says, and anywhere with low-grade waste or geothermal heat is an opportunity, because it doesn’t need the high-grade heat, a resource many plants already use in other ways. The firm is in the midst of restarting CO2 Solutions’ first commercial plant, a 30 t per day facility in Quebec that extracts CO2 from a paper mill and sells it to a nearby greenhouse.


Chart Industries, an energy and industrial gas equipment firm, is also moving into carbon capture through acquisition and investment. In late 2020, Chart acquired Sustainable Energy Solutions, a start-up making cryogenic carbon-capture systems for combustion flue gas. In June of this year, it invested in Earthly Labs, which uses cryogenics to capture CO2 from breweries.

Credit: Mosaic Materials
Mosaic Materials' carbon-capturing metal-organic frameworks.


In the simplest terms, both cryogenic systems chill their target gas streams until the CO2 condenses into a solid or liquid. Nitrogen, still a gas at those temperatures, is pumped off. The basic process, often called cryogenic distillation, is already used to purify other industrial gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen.


The challenge for flue gas is in the engineering, not the chemistry, according to Chart CEO Jill Evanko. If water and CO2 freeze in the wrong places, they can clog pipes and block heat exchangers. But with clever heat management, system design, and integration with the rest of the equipment, Chart and its partners can deliver carbon capture of flue gas at half the cost of conventional amines, Evanko says, and make brewery carbon capture profitable enough to pay off the equipment in 18 months.


Several other technologies are in early-stage development. Solvents that use less water or no water at all, including organic solvents and ionic liquids, could reduce the amount of mass that needs to be heated to release the purified CO2. Allam cycle power plants burn hydrocarbons in a mix of O2 and CO2, sidestepping the need to separate CO2 from nitrogen. And FuelCell Energy is commercializing its molten carbonate fuel cell, which can capture flue gas carbon while generating additional electricity from natural gas.


It’s an exciting time for technology development, the ITC’s Morris says. “Decarbonization is going to be very, very difficult, and it’s probably not going to be possible without technologies that are currently in the development stage.”
STATE OF PLAY

Carbon capture is in its early days, especially for combustion flue gas, such as the emissions of a coal-fired power plant. Researchers are working on each of the technologies below to make them cheaper and more efficient and to get them to work on a wider variety of gas streams. A single commercial-scale installation could let a new technology pass its competitors or even take the lead.
Sources: Global CCS Institute, National Petroleum Council, International Energy Agency, C&EN reporting.

DIRECT AIR CAPTURE


Point-source carbon capture won’t be enough. The technology still lets 2–10% of the carbon through. And it’s hard to deploy on sources with diffuse or mobile emissions, such as airplanes, sprawling petrochemical plants, and wide-open wastewater treatment facilities. Besides, the atmosphere has too much carbon already. The goal of net-zero CO2 emissions will require methods to remove carbon from the air.


This direct air capture, or DAC, works on chemical principles similar to those for point-source capture. The big difference is that our ambient air, although overloaded, is still only 410 ppm, or 0.041%, CO2, much lower than even the most dilute industrial point sources. And that changes a lot about the devices and their economics.


Because flue gas and other point sources are releasing new carbon into the atmosphere, the goal is to capture as much of it as possible—90% is a common target. In DAC, the amount of carbon left behind isn’t important; it’s all about how much CO2 can be removed per dollar spent. “My goal is not to make CO2-free air. My goal is to take CO2 out of the air, and I can choose where the optimal efficiency is,” says Lackner, the Arizona State engineer, who is also developing DAC technology.


But however you look at it, DAC is expensive. Carbon capture at an ethanol plant can cost as little as $10 per metric ton. At a coal-fired power plant, the cost is around $60. DAC companies don’t like to talk about their costs, but industry insiders estimate they are around $500 per metric ton. Lackner and other experts generally peg $100 as the point at which DAC will become cost competitive with other decarbonization methods.


Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a carbon-reduction subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, thinks it can reach that level in partnership with the start-up Carbon Engineering. The firms plan to build in the southwestern US what they say will be the world’s first commercial-scale DAC plant. It will capture 1 million t of CO2 per year, to be used mainly to boost production in Occidental’s oil wells in the region. The largest existing DAC plant captures a mere 2,000 t per year, according to Ryan Edwards, low-carbon policy adviser for Oxy Low Carbon.


Carbon Engineering uses chemical looping to capture carbon from the air. In its process, intended to run on renewable energy, giant fans blow air over plastic surfaces that have aqueous potassium hydroxide flowing over it.


The KOH reacts with CO2 to form potassium carbonate, K2CO3, which then flows into a pellet reactor containing aqueous calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2. The calcium and potassium switch places to form CaCO3, which precipitates out as solid pellets, as well as KOH, which is ready to cycle back to the plastic surfaces. The pellets then pass into a calciner, a heater that decomposes the CaCO3 into solid CaO and pure CO2. The CO2 is cooled and pressurized, and the CaO heads back to the pellet reactor, where it mixes with water and re-forms Ca(OH)2.


The system sounds complicated, but it’s built mostly out of reactions and equipment already in use in industry. The pellet reactor is adapted from papermaking. Calciners running the same chemical reaction are central to cement production, and other versions come into play in glass, uranium, petroleum coke, and gypsum processing.

Credit: Wyoming ITC
The Dry Fork power station in Wyoming sends some of its flue gas to the Wyoming Integrated Test Center, where users test new carbon-capture technologies.


Carbon Engineering published its process in 2018, projecting costs between $94 and $232 per metric ton (Joule, DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2018.05.006). CEO Steve Oldham says the firm is “extremely confident” its costs will be in that range and expects that second and third generations will ensure a cost of $100 or less. “As we deploy more plants, costs will come down, just as they have done in every other sector,” Oldham says.


Mosaic Materials, a developer of MOFs and one of C&EN’s 10 Start-Ups to Watch in 2019, pivoted to DAC from point-source capture 2 years ago, according to CEO Thomas McDonald. In the past 3 months, McDonald says, he’s seen a sharp increase in interest in DAC.


The firm’s MOFs use a flavor of CO2-amine chemistry that McDonald calls cooperative binding, in which the CO2 inserts itself between a magnesium ion and an amine ligand. The mechanism gives the material high capacity and fast kinetics, and it reverses at relatively low temperatures to release the CO2, according to McDonald.


MOFs are more expensive than other solid sorbents such as silica or activated carbon. Mosaic researchers are working to improve the materials’ capacity and stability to reduce operating costs, McDonald says. But the firm is focused more on lowering manufacturing costs and optimizing complete systems around its materials.


Mosaic worked with ExxonMobil on flue gas capture in 2017 and 2018 and has some ongoing work in that area, along with collaborations with NASA and the US Navy on life-support systems, McDonald says. But he sees DAC as the best way to build his company. “We see the fastest, least-capital-intensive, least-risky path is by achieving early scale on projects through direct air capture.”
We will require something roughly the size of the current oil and gas industry, but with the molecules going in reverse.
Syrie Crouch, vice president for carbon capture and storage, Shell


Lackner says DAC is a good fit with renewable energy. If a natural gas power plant is off because of low demand, so is any point-source carbon-capture device attached to it. DAC, on the other hand, can run on renewable energy and stabilize electricity prices by being a customer of last resort.


In addition to his academic work, Lackner is working to commercialize his own DAC concept, which he calls MechanicalTrees. The “trees” eliminate the cost of running fans by relying on wind to move air across sorbents loaded onto disks arranged in a tower. When saturated with CO2, the towers drop into a chamber where heat and vacuum remove the CO2 at roughly 95% concentration.


PAYING FOR IT


All cool ideas, but who’s putting up the cash? A provision of the US tax code called 45Q offers tax credits for capturing carbon. When the provision is fully in place in 2026, carbon that is captured and sequestered will be worth $50 per metric ton. CO2 used to extract more hydrocarbons, a widespread and controversial practice called enhanced oil recovery, gets $35.


That $35 credit plus the $40 per metric ton that enhanced oil recovery operators pay for CO2 on average make that market the most profitable for non-food-grade CO2, even with the lower credit (Front. Clim. 2019, DOI: 10.3389/fclim.2019.00005).


That makes the economic rationale for carbon-capture products dependent on the price of oil. That dynamic is what doomed the Petra Nova carbon-capture facility when the price of oil got too low during the pandemic. Still, Oxy Low Carbon executives are prepared to depend on enhanced oil recovery for their southwestern US DAC project.


Despite such bumps, carbon capture offers a way to decarbonize combustion and other CO2-emitting processes so they can remain part of a net-zero world. That’s both a selling point and a point of criticism. Critics such as Greenpeace say carbon capture diverts resources away from renewables and keeps polluters in business.
Your societal license to dump CO2 into the air will go away. You need to figure out how to operate without needing that license.
Klaus Lackner, engineer, Arizona State University


Critics also point out that almost all the CO2 captured to date has been used in enhanced oil recovery. In the best cases, enough CO2 stays permanently in the ground after such oil extraction that the resulting fuel has net-negative CO2 emissions. But many enhanced oil recovery projects don’t meet that goal (Energies 2019, DOI: 10.3390/en12030448).


“To put it very brutally, in the beginning, I don’t care” where the captured CO2 goes, Lackner says. The technology needs to start scaling up now. He points to a recent report from the International Energy Agency detailing a path to net zero by 2050. In that scenario, point-source capture has to scale up from about 40 million t per year today to 6.6 billion t in 2050, and DAC has to grow from a few thousand metric tons per year to almost 1 billion t in 2050.


If enhanced oil recovery operators are willing to be early adopters that get carbon capture down to a cost that the market will bear, Lackner says, that’ll have to do. “The only way you get there is by learning. Most industries gain 10–20% in cost reduction for every doubling of cumulative output,” he says. “If we follow normal learning curves, I’m allowed to be optimistic. If it turns out we derail from that, the sooner we know, the better off we are.”


Shell’s Crouch agrees that industry needs to start deploying carbon capture now to reach the necessary scale. “We will require something roughly the size of the current oil and gas industry, but with the molecules going in reverse,” she says.


Building all those plants will cost $655 billion to $1,280 billion over the next 3 decades, according to a recent analysis by the GCCSI. That’s a lot of money, but Brad Page, CEO of the GCCSI, points out in a press release that “investing around one trillion dollars over almost 30 years is well within the capacity of the private sector which invested almost two trillion dollars in the energy sector in 2018 alone. Government decisions hold the key to enabling the requisite private sector capital being allocated for [carbon capture and storage] deployment.”


One proposal the US Congress is considering now would add a higher credit for carbon captured from the air. The idea has broad bipartisan support, according to Oxy Low Carbon’s Edwards. At a recent panel discussion hosted by the nonprofit OurEnergyPolicy, he expressed confidence that enhanced incentives, R&D and deployment support, and funding for infrastructure for CO2 transport and storage could all become law in the current session of Congress.


Jeremy Harrell, the managing director for policy at the energy-transition nonprofit ClearPath and another OurEnergyPolicy panelist, said he expects the Biden administration to launch a 50:50 cost-sharing initiative to deploy a first wave of carbon-capture facilities. “We think that sends a really important market signal to the private sector as they look to invest in these technologies,” he said at the event. “The politics here are going to play out well over the next 18 months, and people should stay tuned.”


The administration’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year includes a 61% increase in spending at the Department of Energy on carbon capture, use, and storage, though the $368 million total is far short of what many climate activists would like to see.


Edwards says 45Q has opened the door to commercial-scale carbon-capture projects. Since Congress extended 45Q in 2018 and removed the cap on the number of credits available, 30 to 40 new projects have been publicly proposed, he says, which would more than double the global number. Between projects that are being kept quiet for now and new ones that will be unlocked if Congress expands 45Q, that increase is “just the tip of the iceberg,” Edwards says.


It’ll need to be. Right now, 28 point-source capture and DAC plants are active, including at Boundary Dam and nonpower installations, according to the GCCSI. The world will need 2,000 large facilities by 2050, along with transportation and storage infrastructure, to reach net zero by then.


“The reality is, we’ve only got a certain amount of time left,” the GCCSI’s Steyn says. “We’re now pushing against the clock.” Considering how long it takes to finance, engineer, and build a trillion dollars of industrial equipment, he says, “If you’re going to actually make inroads toward net-zero 2050, it’s got to happen this decade. This is the make-or-break decade.”

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society

Will the transparent evidence requirements of ESG disrupt the shipping industry?

July 16, 2021

Global maritime, shipping and offshore news - Splash 24/7 (splash247.com)
 

Piet Sinke / Maasmond Maritime


So far shipping has been able to skirt around the edge of the disruption that ESG could be about to bring upon the main stakeholders. The industry has yet to really to get to grips with it, especially the societal element, argues Frank Coles.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is about accountability in the business itself environmental, social and governance (ESG) goes much further; it is about evidence and metrics. It provides for evidence and transparency related to the stakeholders and business objectives. ESG also places a responsibility on a company to ensure compliance in the supply chain and business partners it does business with.

CSR is about softer issues, while ESG is the evidential measure of a company’s sustainability and societal impact, using metrics that matter to investors. CSR is more like marketing or spin, but ESG is about actionable data which requires evidence and transparency.

ESG applies numerical figures as to how companies treat their staff, manage supply chains, respond to climate change, increase diversity and inclusion, and build community links.

Shippers and charterers will have to ensure that the ESG of owners also covers the treatment of crew onboard

Much of the discussion on ESG seems to circle around the environmental, but it is clear from the EU position that the societal position is also relevant and likely critical.

REGULATION (EU) 2020/852 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088

Article 18
The minimum safeguards referred to in point (c) of Article 3 shall be procedures implemented by an undertaking that is carrying out an economic activity to ensure the alignment with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, including the principles and rights set out in the eight fundamental conventions identified in the Declaration of the International Labour Organisation on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and the International Bill of Human Rights.

It appears that for a shipping company, manager, charterer or shipper to be ESG compliant they need to have clear measurable metrics on human rights not only in the company but also in their supply chain and the associated companies they deal with. If this is done properly they will not be able to greenwash or hide behind spin. This is not about a document but more about real facts and evidence.

Shipmanagers will have a very hard time with this requirement. For instance, for as much as they want to comply with the fair treatment of crew, the lowest common denominator in the clientele will govern their compliance. Owners who do not relieve the crew will hardly be able to claim a supportable ESG. The pressure will be even greater for those managers owned by private equity, as investors they will be required to comply with the EU taxonomy regulations.

Shippers and charterers will have to ensure that the ESG of owners and carriers also covers the treatment of the crew onboard and this includes during the current pandemic. With 300,000 crew over contract it is likely many are noncompliant at this point. What is more disturbing is that little action is being done to relieve the crew. With the EU taxonomy regulations banks and investors should be particularly careful about the abuse of this part of the ESG regulations.

The last part of this lies in the evidence of compliance with ESG. The recent publication of the Webber Research ESG Scorecard, as reported by Splash, discusses carbon reporting, but there are gaping holes in the scorecard. At least one company scoring high would fail on the societal scorecard, if not the ethical part of the requirements.

For instance, lying to the crew about being relieved and keeping them on for months and months over their time just to avoid a high airfare. Or ordering your managers to delete an oil record that shows an oil leak into the ocean. Or turning off the internet on ships to prevent the crew from communicating. This would seem to be gross breaches of ESG. Never mind the general malaise that many companies have shown to getting the crews off ships.

This points to investigations and vetting by a properly independent source being required. Going forward, it is going to be incumbent, under the regulations, on the banks and investors to make sure they have done their due diligence. This will not be a check box, but will require independent evidence of compliance with the claimed metrics.

Relying on an ineffective scorecard or a certificate or spin is not going to wash this one away. If done properly this due diligence will enable the banks, and the shipper to have proper transparent data on the ESG performance of the owner, manager and other parties to the supply chain. Proof will be required on all ESG actions and inactions, a voice to the crew maybe?

It is hard to see big shippers like IKEA and many others accepting the current ESG abuses in shipping. It is clear the banks and investors will no longer be able to turn a blind eye.

Transparent operations and ‘the people’s conscience’ maybe about to come to shipping and not a moment too soon.

Samsung Heavy enters offshore wind market with large-scale floater

 July 19, 2021 

Global maritime, shipping and offshore news - Splash 24/7 (splash247.com)

 Samsung Heavy Industries

One of the world’s largest shipbuilders, South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), is stepping into the offshore wind arena with its independently developed floater model.

SHI said on Monday it has received approval in principle (AIP) from the Norwegian classification society DNV for its 9.5 MW large-scale offshore wind floater model, called the Tri-Star Float.

The 9.5-megawatt floater should help cut the construction period from design and transportation to installation by removing pontoons, a steel-frame structure supporting wind generator on the sea, SHI explained.

SHI plans to advance into the market targeting the government-led Donghae-1 floating wind farm project, which will generate 6 GW of power.

“The offshore floater will enable us to make forays into the renewable energy sector using our capacity to build large-scale offshore plants. We hope our development is aligned with the government’s Green New Deal Policy,” said Wang Lee, vice president of the offshore business division of SHI.

SHI began the development of the independent floater model in October 2020 before completing the floating water tank model test at the Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering (KRISO) in March.

 

Walmart tops retail list of American maritime import polluters

 July 20, 2021

Global maritime, shipping and offshore news - Splash 24/7 (splash247.com)

 Port of Los Angeles

Liners, already feeling the heat from their major clients to slash their carbon footprint, will likely get more urgent calls following the release today of a report highlighting which retail chains are polluting the most in America thanks to their shipping choices.

A study released from NGOs Pacific Environment and Stand.earth is the first report to quantify the environmental and public health impacts from some of the biggest American retailers’ reliance on overseas manufacturing and fossil-fuelled, transoceanic shipping.

By cross referencing a comprehensive set of cargo manifests with a dataset on individual ship emissions, researchers were able to estimate the pollution associated with each unit of cargo on shipping routes heading to the US and, for the first time, assign those emissions to retail companies. Walmart topped the list, responsible for 3.7m tons of climate pollution from its shipping practices in 2019, more than an entire coal-fired power plant emits in a year. Target, IKEA, Amazon, and eleven other companies were also investigated.

“Major retail companies are directly responsible for the dirty air that sickens our youth with asthma, leads to thousands of premature deaths a year in US port communities, and adds to the climate emergency,” said Madeline Rose, climate campaign director for Pacific Environment.

A poll conducted last October for Pacific Environment by Yale University, George Mason University and Climate Nexus found that 74% of American voters would be more likely to shop at companies that use cleaner ways to ship their goods. The poll also found that 70% of American voters would continue to shop at these brands even if using clean ships raised the price of their goods.

Maersk, the world’s largest containerline, revealed in February that around half of its largest customers have set – or are in the process of setting – ambitious science-based or zero carbon targets for their supply chains, and the figure is on the rise.