It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A feasibility study into shipping’s use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology shows that the LNG sector is currently better suited than tankers to benefit from the use of CCS, although tankers could also benefit as costs come down.
The study was conducted as part a partnership between tanker company Stena Bulk and the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) and aimed at exploring the potential of capturing carbon from the exhaust of large ships as the shipping industry races to decarbonize.
Stena Bulk provided data from three vessels of different types in its fleet, specifically a medium range (MR) oil/chemical tanker and a Suezmax crude oil tanker currently running on heavy fuel oil (HFO), and an LNG carrier fueled by LNG. Data collected included information on deck space, fuel use, and the availability of heat and energy in the exhaust stream, among other considerations.
The findings showed that the LNG carrier offered the most straightforward path to implementing viable CCS because it had the right mix of onboard infrastructure, while the Suezmax and MR tankers presented more technical challenges to implementing a CCS system.
That’s not to say tankers don’t have the potential to successfully use CCS technology. The study showed that carbon capture and storage is also technically feasible on a large tanker (in this case the suezmax benefitted over the MR tanker), but the biggest barrier is the cost of installation and operation. Upfront capex requirements of installing storage tanks, compressors, and other equipment create a barrier to entry, while operation expenses also increase because of the energy requirements for using a CCS system effectively. However, the study found that these costs could be substantially reduced if the engine was adapted for compatibility with carbon capture and storage.
The study concluded that while costs were likely to be a hurdle to deployment of CCS in the near and medium term, the technology could be a viable long-term option to meeting decarbonization targets as technology improves and costs come down. Commodity prices for captured carbon dioxide could also potentially offset some the costs to install and operate.
“We think that it’s right that the industry is honest about the challenges it faces from a technical and commercial perspective on the pathway to decarbonisation,” said Erik Hånell, President and CEO of Stena Bulk. “This study proves once again that there is no silver bullet solution to meet the IMO’s climate targets, and that we must promote and adopt a wide variety of proven and commercially sensible solutions if we are to successfully decarbonise.”
Dr. Michael Traver, Transport Workstream Chair for the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, said: “Carbon capture and storage is expected to play a key role in meeting the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and is a familiar process for many of the member companies of OGCI. Extending and adapting the technology to marine vessels poses unique challenges, but also represents a great opportunity to reduce emissions from a difficult to abate sector within transportation. Our partnership with Stena Bulk has been a great example of the type of cross-industry collaboration that will be necessary to meet the challenges we face.”
PHOTO Oleksandr Kalinichenko / Shutterstock
Study: Carbon Capture is Costly but Feasible for Tankers
LNG carriers would have the most straight forward path to CCS (Stena Bulk)
Some experts have predicted that carbon capture and storage aboard operating ships would not be practical and best suited to land installation, but a new study highlights the technical feasibility on a larger tanker while also saying cast would be a challenge. The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), an industry-led initiative working with data from Stena Bulk has found that mobile carbon capture in shipping is technically feasible and has a long-term role to play in meeting the industry’s decarbonization targets. It supports similar results for efforts in Japan and elsewhere.
The first phase of the study explored three classes of tankers, medium range oil/chemical tanker, a Suezmax crude oil tanker currently running on heavy fuel oil, and an LNG carrier fueled by LNG. The research used vessel technical information such as deck space, fuel use, the availability of heat and energy in the exhaust stream, from Stena Bulk.
The study findings showed that the LNG carrier offered the most straightforward path to implementing viable CCS because it had the right mix of onboard infrastructure. The Suezmax and MR tankers presented more technical challenges to implementing a CCS system. A full feasibility study was however also conducted based on the Suezmax tanker’s technical specifications because of the positive impact that a potential carbon capture and storage system would have, and to test feasibility on a ship that was representative of the global fleet.
“Carbon capture and storage is expected to play a key role in meeting the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and is a familiar process for many of the member companies of OGCI,” said Dr. Michael Traver, Transport Workstream Chair for the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative. “Extending and adapting the technology to marine vessels poses unique challenges, but also represents a great opportunity to reduce emissions from a difficult to abate sector within transportation.”
Based on these technical reviews, the study identified the biggest challenges were likely to be the cost of installation and operation, with storage tanks, compressors, and other equipment generating a large upfront CapEx barrier. Operating expenses would also increase, the study found, because of the energy required to use the CCS system effectively. However, the study found that these costs could be substantially reduced if the engine was adapted for compatibility with carbon capture and storage and they are reporting that they do not believe the challenges are unsurmountable.
The study concluded these costs were likely to be a hurdle to the deployment of CCS in the near and medium-term, but that as the technology improves and becomes cheaper to operate, it could be a persuasive option for the industry’s decarbonization trajectory. Wider context could influence this as well, the study pointed out, with commodity prices for captured carbon dioxide potentially offsetting some of the costs for owners and operators.
Erik Hånell, President and CEO of Stena Bulk, said: “These results show promise, but also make clear that there are commercial and technical challenges that our sector must overcome if we are to use CCS as a decarbonization solution. We think that it’s right that the industry is honest about the challenges it faces from a technical and commercial perspective on the pathway to decarbonization. This study proves once again that there is no silver bullet solution to meet the IMO’s climate targets, and that we must promote and adopt a wide variety of proven and commercially sensible solutions if we are to successfully decarbonize.”
The study, launched in October 2020, investigated the potential of capturing carbon from the exhaust gases of the large internal combustion engines that large ships predominantly use for propulsion. OGCI published the complete results online.
A similar research program was also launched in 2019 including companies from Japan, Russia, Norway, and Denmark among others while the Japanese shipping companies have been moving forward with demonstration programs. Japan’s National Maritime Research Institute (NMRI) has been studying incorporating CCS into the scrubbers fitted on ships while in October 2021, Japan’s K Line working with Mitsubishi Shipbuilding announced that they have successfully tested a demonstration unit aboard one of the line’s bulkers. Wartsila plans to install another CCS test system on a vessel by 2023.
Saturday, October 16, 2021
Is Joe Manchin Aware That His Favorite Climate Technology Is a Total Bust?
The conservative Democrat is insisting that Biden’s Build Back Better Act include funding for carbon capture projects.
But even the fossil fuel industry admits the tech is a nonfactor in fighting global warming.
Senator Joe Manchin has insisted for months that he won’t support President Biden’s Build Back Better Act unless it subsidizes a largely unproven and expensive climate technology. Democrats are now bending to the conservative Democrat from West Virginia: The multitrillion-dollar reconciliation bill being debated in the Senate is likely to include generous tax credits for coal, oil, gas, and other industrial companies to capture their massive greenhouse gas emissions and bury them underground.
But carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is light years away from doing anything to help climate change. That’s the conclusion of a new report written not by a climate group but rather by some of the technology’s biggest corporate defenders.
The 43-page report, released earlier this week by the Global CCS Institute, reveals that even with substantial financial support from governments and thousands of advertisements from oil companies touting the potential of CCS, the actual climate-fighting capacity of such projects in operation or in various stages of planning worldwide is slightly lower than it was a decade ago. “Despite unprecedented growth in the CCS project pipeline for the last 12 months, there remains a massive gap between today’s CCS fleet and what is required to reduce global anthropogenic emissions to net zero,” explains the institute, whose members include Chevron, Exxon, General Electric, Occidental Petroleum, Southern Company, and dozens of other top industrial climate polluters.
The report says that CCS projects would need to be capturing the equivalent of 5,600 million tons of carbon dioxide in order to keep global temperatures below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold beyond which scientists warn our climate system could spin dangerously out of control. Today, however, the technology is capturing 40 million tons. That’s a climate rounding error when you consider that atmosphere-altering emissions from Exxon’s oil and gas products alone were 1,300 million tons in 2019.
“The technology works great,” Matt Bright, a spokesperson for the Global CCS Institute, wrote in an email to The New Republic. “Yes, it’s feasible, it’s just difficult. Going to the moon wasn’t feasible in 1960. Then JFK said ‘We’re going to the moon in this decade,’ made it feasible, and we got there in 1969.”
Climate advocates have a much different interpretation of the report. “The world is finally having a reality check on CCS,” climate activist Tzeporah Berman tweeted in response. “No progress in a decade despite billions in investment.”
Even the most advanced carbon capture facilities are failing to deliver. Chevron acknowledged this summer that its $54 billion Gorgon gas project in Australia, considered to be the largest use of CCS technology in the world, was only capturing and burying 30 percent of the operation’s emissions. It was supposed to be 80 percent. Exxon is proposing an even bigger CCS project near Houston that would cost $100 billion, with much of the funding coming from U.S. taxpayers.
Manchin has acknowledged disappointment in CCS’s progress (or lack thereof). “I’d love to have carbon capture, but we don’t have the technology because we really haven’t gotten to that point. And it’s so darn expensive that it makes it almost impossible,” he said earlier this month. But he is nonetheless adamant that carbon capture play a starring role in the Build Back Better Act. In a July memo made public in September, the senator proposed cutting the package from $3.5 trillion to $1.5 trillion, which necessarily would require major cuts to the bill’s climate spending. But at the same time, he insisted the bill be “fuel neutral” and that carbon capture on coal and natural gas “can feasibly qualify” for a portion of the remaining money.
Manchin seems to be betting that even if Biden is successful in shifting 80 percent of the power grid to clean energy within the next decade, coal and natural gas will still be required to provide the remainder. If those fossil fuel plants are able to bury their emissions, they could potentially stay open for decades. “For someone whose biggest priority is keeping coal plants open, this offers a longer-term lifeline than just the status quo,” one person close to the talks told E&E News. (Manchin’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment from TNR.)
“We’re deeply concerned that a scaled-back climate portion of the package will be funding false solutions like carbon capture instead of actual solutions like building more wind and solar and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies,” Mitch Jones, policy director for the environmental group Food & Water Watch, told me.
But Democrats don’t have much choice other than to negotiate with Manchin. Either they get his vote in a Senate with the slimmest possible Democratic majority, or there’s no climate spending package at all. In that sense, some federal support for carbon capture could be worthwhile, said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. “They could usefully spend some money on demonstration projects to show that maybe it can be done right,” he said. “But really, it’s a political decision to keep Joe Manchin happy and the people he represents.”
Geoff Dembicki @GeoffDembicki is a climate reporter. He is the author of Are We Screwed? How a New Generation Is Fighting to Survive Climate Change
By Kurt Cobb, originally published by Resource Insights
July 25, 2021
An astute journalist I know once described carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a “delay-and-fail strategy” devised by the fossil fuel industry. The industry’s ploy was utterly obvious to him: Promise to perfect and deploy CCS at some vague point in the future. By the time people catch on that CCS won’t work, the fossil fuel industry will have successfully extended the time it has operated without onerous regulation for another couple of decades.
And because huge financial resources (mostly government resources) will have gone to CCS projects instead of low-carbon energy production, society will continue to be wildly dependent on carbon-based fuels (giving the industry further running room).
The trouble is that the cynical CCS strategy has already been under way and failing for more than two decades already. And yet, it is seeking a renewed lease on life with a proposal for a vast network of carbon dioxide pipelines “twice the size of the current U.S. oil pipeline network by volume.” The public face of the effort is a former Obama administration secretary of energy with a perennially bad haircut, Ernest Moniz.
Moniz has a partnership with the AFL-CIO to push the idea. No doubt unions like the project because it would create a lot of jobs regardless of whether it actually addresses climate change.
Just for the record, here’s a list of reasons that CCS doesn’t work and likely will not work in any time frame that matters for addressing climate change:
It’s very costly. Many of the pilot projects have been shut down because they are uneconomical. Suitable underground storage is not abundant and frequently not near facilities that produce the carbon dioxide.
Long-term storage may fail, releasing the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere anyway. After all, one must have injection wells into the underground storage, wells that can leak if not properly maintained. Not least, there is no multi-decade record of successful, leak-free sequestration. And finally, there is no assurance that such storage facilities can be maintained properly for the many centuries required to have them actually protect the climate.
The carbon dioxide in some current viable CCS projects is used by the oil industry to flush out more oil from existing wells. That’s hardly in keeping with the purpose of addressing climate change
[I]n order to sequester just a fifth of current CO2 emissions we would have to create an entirely new worldwide absorption-gathering-compression-transportation-storage industry whose annual throughput would have to be about 70 percent larger than the annual volume now handled by the global crude oil industry whose immense infrastructure of wells, pipelines, compressor stations and storages took generations to build. Technically possible—but not within a timeframe that would prevent CO2 from rising above 450 ppm.
Smil wrote that back in 2011. The latest reading in Hawaii at the often-cited Scripps Institution of Oceanography Mauna Loa Observatory is 418 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. The relentless upward slope of the observatory’s graph of carbon dioxide concentration shows that the fossil fuel industry’s tactics—of which delay-and-fail CCS is just one—are working splendidly.
It is troubling that a key official at the U.S. Department of Energy is taking the CCS plan seriously. One would think that decades of failure would finally make clear the false promises of the industry. But, of course, failure is the whole point of the CCS ruse. What’s puzzling is that the failure to date has somehow become a rallying cry to try harder by building one of the biggest boondoggles ever conceived.
CO2 capture and storage: Environmental lifeline or blank cheque for polluters?
Grégoire SAUVAGE -
CO2 capture and storage technologies are gaining momentum as the world struggles to reduce emissions enough to avoid a climate catastrophe. Some climate activists are sceptical and see this technology as a cop-out. But others say its use could well be necessary.
CO2 capture and storage: Environmental lifeline or blank cheque for polluters?
For years, carbon capture and storage (CCS) was outside the mainstream, hindered by prohibitive costs and a lack of political support. But now the CCS industry is booming.
The French Institute of International Relations counted a record 76 CCS projects on the go in Europe in a 2021 report.
“Currently, CCS is progressing along two tracks in Europe; there’s a lot of enthusiasm in northern Europe and a lot less enthusiasm in southern Europe, where there’s a lack of political will to implement these technologies,” said Thomas Le Guénan, a geologist at the French Geological and Mining Research Bureau.
The market for CO2 capture and storage equipment is expected to quadruple over the next three years, reaching some $50 billion in 2025, according to Norwegian research firm Rystad Energy. Thanks to surging investment in Europe and North America, the CCS industry should be able to sequester 150 million tonnes per year, up from 40 million at present. This is nevertheless a drop in the ocean when compared to the 38 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted by humans in 2019.
Piloted by oil supermajors Total, Shell and Equinor, the Northern Lights project is expected to make Norway a CO2 storage powerhouse. Near the island of Bergen, a terminal is set to capture nearly 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year produced by European industry. “The ship will unload its CO2 in liquid form; it’s like water, odourless and colourless,” explained Cristel Lambtone, the project's technical director, speaking to France Info. The CO2 will then be transported through pipelines to be stored 2,500 metres below the North Sea in wells currently being drilled.
How does CO2 capture work?
Needless to say, CO2 needs to captured before it is buried. The easiest way to do this is while fossil fuels or wood are being burned. There are various processes, but the one the CCS sector has mastered best is called “post-combustion” – using a solvent to isolate the CO2 from the industrial fumes. This technique is especially effective on the most polluting manufacturing sites, like power stations, steelworks, chemical plants and cement plants.
The next step is to transport the compressed CO2 to storage sites such as old oil reservoirs or saline aquifers. “These are not holes but deep formations with porous rocks that allow CO2 to be injected,” Le Guénan explained. “We also look for formations with impermeable rock on top to prevent CO2 from rising up.”
Related video: Shipping industry feeling increased pressure to reduce carbon emissions
It is also possible to suck CO2 straight from the atmosphere using giant hoovers. The largest operation using this technology is the Orca site in Iceland. Although still in its infancy, this technology has won a lot of investment over the past two years, especially in the US. Tech titans like Elon Musk and Bill Gates have poured in money.
A gigafactory capturing CO2 directly from the atmosphere is due to start work in the US state of Wyoming, a big coal producer. This “Bison” project aims to capture 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.
Limits of CO2 capture
CCS looks like a godsend as countries around the world struggle to wean themselves off fossil fuels.
But while prices have reduced significantly, the high costs of these energy-intensive technologies still place a ceiling on what the sector can do. “As things stand, the price of the carbon allowance issued under the EU’s CO2 emissions trading scheme is still lower than the costs for manufacturers of CCS technology,” said Florence Delprat-Jannaud, head of the CCS programme at the French Institute of Petroleum. “Subsidies are needed to accelerate the implementation of this technology.”
The cost is even higher for direct capture from the air – up to €335 per tonne of CO2 – because the process requires a lot of energy, since CO2 is not highly concentrated in the air.
Nevertheless, costs could fall below €100 per tonne by 2030 for facilities benefitting from large renewable energy resources, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
And it takes a long time to make storage locations operational. “You’ve got to collect a lot of data to have enough confidence in a site; all in all, it can take about a decade,” said Le Guénan, who is currently studying a potential storage area in Grandpuits in the Paris region as part of an EU project.
‘Essential’ or a ‘risky bet’?
At the same time, many people do not like the idea of CO2 storage sites in their local area due to fears of gas leaks and lower house prices. Fierce opposition from local populations to proposed projects has already been seen in Germany and The Netherlands.
Many environmentalists are also sceptical. “Manufacturers see CCS as a way of carrying on with the same production model, when it would be better to reduce energy consumption while recycling industrial materials,” said Léa Mattieu, head of the heavy industry programme at the NGO Climate Action Network.
“It’s a risky bet,” Mattieu continued. “Manufacturers have been talking about this technology for several decades – and we haven’t really seen the results come to fruition. CCS is still too expensive and it may well end up being a last resort solution, just for heavy industry.”
Indeed, as things stand CCS plays a marginal role in reducing CO2 emissions and its potential for development remains unproven. At present only around 30 large-scale installations are at work across the globe, capable of capturing and storing some 40 million tonnes a year. In order to achieve carbon neutrality, according to the IEA, 50 or even 100 times more than that needs to be captured and stored by 2035.
All that said, as countries struggle to bring enough renewable and nuclear energy on line, scientists from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say CCS is essential to averting a climate catastrophe – while highlighting that nothing must distract from the imperative of drastically reducing emissions.
Explainer-Why carbon capture is no easy solution to climate change
2023/11/22
By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) -Technologies that capture carbon dioxide emissions to keep them from the atmosphere are central to the climate strategies of many world governments as they seek to follow through on international commitments to decarbonize by mid-century.
They are also expensive, unproven at scale, and can be hard to sell to a nervous public - making unworkable, at the moment, the model envisaged worldwide of capturing carbon and storing it for money.
As nations gather for the 28th United Nations climate change conference in the United Arab Emirates at the end of November, the question of carbon capture’s future role in a climate-friendly world will be in focus. Here are some details about the state of the industry now, and the obstacles in the way of widespread deployment:
FORMS OF CARBON CAPTURE
The most common form of carbon capture technology involves capturing the gas from a point source like an industrial smokestack. From there, the carbon can either be moved directly to permanent underground storage or it can be used in another industrial purpose first, variations that are respectively called carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).
There are currently 42 operational commercial CCS and CCUS projects across the world with the capacity to store 49 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to the Global CCS Institute, which tracks the industry. That is about 0.13% of the world’s roughly 37 billion metric tons of annual energy and industry-related carbon dioxide emissions.
Some 30 of those projects, accounting for 78% of all captured carbon from the group, use the carbon for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), in which carbon is injected into oil wells to free trapped oil. Drillers say EOR can make petroleum more climate-friendly, but environmentalists say the practice is counter-productive.
The other 12 projects, which permanently store carbon in underground formations without using them to boost oil output, are in the U.S., Norway, Iceland, China, Canada, Qatar, and Australia, according to the Global CCS Institute.
It is unclear how many of these projects, if any, turn a profit.
Another form of carbon capture is direct air capture (DAC), in which carbon emissions are captured from the air.
About 130 DAC facilities are being planned around the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), though just 27 have been commissioned and they capture just 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The U.S. in August announced $1.2 billion in grants for two DAC hubs in Texas and Louisiana that promise to capture 2 million metric tons of carbon per year, though a final investment decision on the projects has not been made.
HIGH COSTS
One stumbling block to rapid deployment of carbon capture technology is cost.
CCS costs range from $15 to $120 per metric ton of captured carbon depending on the emissions source, and DAC projects are even more expensive, between $600 and $1,000 per metric ton, because of the amount of energy needed to capture carbon from the atmosphere, according to the IEA.
Some CCS projects in countries like Norway and Canada have been paused for financial reasons.
Developers say they need a carbon price, either in the form of a carbon tax, trading scheme or tax break, that makes it profitable to capture and store the carbon. Without that, only carbon capture projects that increase revenue in a different way - like through increased oil output - are profitable.
Countries including the U.S. have rolled out public subsidies for carbon capture projects. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, offers a $50 tax credit per metric ton of carbon captured for CCUS and $85 per metric ton captured for CCS, and $180 per metric ton captured through DAC.
Though those are meaningful incentives, companies may still need to take on some added costs to move CCS and DAC projects ahead, said Benjamin Longstreth, global director of carbon capture at the Clean Air Task Force.
Some CCS projects have also failed to prove out the technology's readiness. A $1 billion project to harness carbon dioxide emissions from a Texas coal plant, for example, had chronic mechanical problems and routinely missed its targets before it was shut down in 2020, according to a report submitted by the project’s owners to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Petra Nova project restarted in September.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Where captured carbon can be stored is limited by geology, a reality that would become more pronounced if and when carbon capture is deployed at the kind of massive scale that would be needed to make a difference to the climate. The best storage sites for carbon are in portions of North America, East Africa, and the North Sea, according to the Global CCS Institute.
That means getting captured carbon to storage sites could require extensive pipeline networks or even shipping fleets – posing potential new obstacles.
In October, for example, a $3 billion CCS pipeline project proposed by Navigator CO2 Ventures in the U.S. Midwest - meant to move carbon from heartland ethanol plants to good storage sites - was canceled amid concerns from residents about potential leaks and construction damage.
Companies investing in carbon removal need to take seriously community concerns about new infrastructure projects, said Simone Stewart, industrial policy specialist at the National Wildlife Federation.
"Not all technologies are going to be possible in all locations," Stewart said.
(Reporting by Leah DouglasEditing by Marguerita Choy)
(Bloomberg) -- The number of carbon capture and storage projects in development grew to record levels this year on the back of rising carbon prices and government incentives, but would still only mitigate less than 1% of annual emissions, a new report finds.
There are now 153 CCS projects in the planning phase, 61 more than this time last year and more than at any time in history, the Melbourne-based Global CCS Institute found in its annual survey of the sector, released today. They would add to the 30 projects currently operating and a further 11 under construction.
The US leads the way with 34 new proposed CCS projects, followed by Canada, the UK, Norway, Australia, the Netherlands and Iceland. Favorable policies stimulated investment in these countries, including higher carbon prices, tax credits and direct grants, the report found.
Despite the jump in new capacity, all existing and proposed projects would be able to store just 244 million tons of CO₂ a year, less than 1% of the 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide the International Energy Agency estimates was added to the atmosphere last year.
Carbon capture and storage technology, which captures carbon dioxide from a range of sources and stores it underground, usually in depleted oil or gas reservoirs, has proved a controversial technology. Supporters say it has a vital role in the push to keep global warming to within the Paris Agreement’s stated target of 1.5 degrees celsius, with around 1.3 billion tons of storage capacity needed by 2030 to meet that target, according to the IEA. But critics argue CCS is an expensive, ineffective technology that serves to prolong the life of fossil fuels.
Early examples focused on capturing emissions from coal-fired power plants, while on the storage side, CO₂ was often injected into petroleum reservoirs to extract oil, a technique known as “enhanced oil recovery”. Both applications supported continued fossil fuel use, which is still the main area for CCS projects.
Natural gas processing is the most common application in existing CCS projects, while ethanol production, power generation, manufacture of hydrogen with natural gas (known as “blue hydrogen”) are the most common for those in development.
But attention has increasingly widened to technology such as “direct air carbon capture and storage” (DACCS) -- which removes CO₂ directly out of the atmosphere and stores it -- and capturing the emissions from hard to abate industries like cement and steel. These applications were advocated by international authorities and were found growing.
“CCS is the Swiss Army knife of climate mitigation -- it will continue to play multiple, unique roles in decarbonising the global economy,” said Jarad Daniels, Chief Executive Officer of the Global CCS Institute. “Many essential industries like cement and chemical production have no other viable path for deep decarbonisation other than CCS.”
The report did not say how much the planned projects would cost, but the Global CCS Institute last year estimated between $655 billion and $1.28 trillion of investment in carbon-capture technologies could reduce emissions by 15% by 2050 -- which it argued was “well within the capacity of the private sector”.
Monday, December 04, 2023
Don’t be fooled:CCSis no solution to oil and gas emissions
The oil and gas industry wants you to believe it can capture its emissions and keep drilling as usual. That’s no way to avert climate chaos Al Wasl Dome at the Cop28 venue in Dubai, UAE
At the Cop28 climate conference taking place in Dubai, oil and gas producers are counting on carbon capture and storage (CCS) for a social license to keep drilling as usual. Don’t fall for it.
While it can be helpful at the margins, CCS cannot possibly deliver reductions in greenhouse gas emissions on the scale needed to avert climate disaster. This can only happen if the main sources of emissions – fossil fuels – are phased out.
CCS is expected to deliver less than a tenth of the cumulative carbon dioxide emission reductions, over the 2023-2050 period, needed to hold global warming to 1.5C.
In the International Energy Agency net zero emission (NZE) scenario, CCS captures approximately 1.5 billion tons (GT) of CO2 in 2030, and 6 GT by 2050. But very little of that is applied to emissions from fossil fuel production and combustion. It is primarily used to capture CO2 from sectors where emissions are harder and more expensive to reduce, such as cement production or chemicals.
Is the IEA NZE scenario the only way to achieve net-zero emission and limit the temperature increase to 1.5C? Certainly not. There are different scenarios out there, including those of the Energy Transition Commission and McKinsey. And scenarios coming out of models are not to be confused with reality. The fossil fuel industry claims it can achieve the same objectives as in the IEA NZE scenario, while producing more oil and gas, by relying more heavily on CCS. Is this true? 50% more expensive
Another IEA scenario, the stated policies scenario, gives the answer. Reaching net-zero carbon emissions in this way would require the capture of 32 GT of CO2 emissions by 2050, including 23 GT through direct air capture (DAC).
At this scale, DAC alone would require 26,000 TWh of electricity to operate, which is more than the total global electricity demand today. Reaching net-zero emissions in this way would be 50% more expensive (for an annual investment cost of $6.9 trillions) than in the IEA NZE scenario.
People in the oil and gas industry know there is zero probability of this high-CCS scenario coming true. They are not even seriously investing in it, but waiting for governments, through taxpayers, to pick up the bill. The reality is they are just fooling us one more time, to buy time we can’t afford to waste in dealing with the climate crisis.
For all these reasons, framing the objective of the energy and climate transitions in the Cop28 decision text as “phasing out unabated [i.e. without CCS] fossil fuel emissions”, without specifying the order of magnitude of CCS in the overall portfolio of zero-carbon energy solutions (approximately 10%), and its primary use (hard-to-abate sectors, outside the oil and gas industry), would be profoundly misleading. Focus on real solutions
It would also be a missed opportunity for Cop28 to send a clear signal of where investments should be going in the energy sector, to ensure climate safety as much as energy security and future profits of energy companies: energy efficiency and savings; the deployment of renewable energies and other zero-carbon energy solutions (green hydrogen, sustainable biofuels, synthetic fuels, etc.); the complete decarbonization of the power sector (electricity generation); and the electrification of energy demand.
Today, the oil and gas industry is not part of the energy transition: it represent only 1% of the total investment ($1.8 trillion in 2022) in clean energy solutions, globally. And it invests only about 2.5% of its own record-high profits into clean energy, as opposed to the further expansion of oil and gas.
What should be the ratio of investments between zero-carbon energy solutions and the maintenance of existing oil and gas facilities, to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C? 50/50 by 2030, says the IEA in its fossil fuels special report, before it shifts further in the direction of a complete phase out from fossil fuels.
These should be the real objectives of Cop28, in relation to the energy transition. Otherwise, we are just mixing up the signal and the noise, confusing what should be the priority (phasing-out fossil fuels, phasing-in zero-carbon energy solutions) and what is a small part of the strategy (CCS) for a successful energy transition.
Biology: Coal plant 'help' with climate change nothing short of a miracle
Steve Rissing Fri, November 26, 2021
The Washington Post recently described the odd situation of a North Dakota coal industry group advocating for electric vehicles. This in a state where coal’s fossil fuel friends, the oil industry, disdain the concept.
According to the Post, the idea depends on “…a long-shot project to (capture and) store carbon emissions in deep underground wells."
Inside Climate News recently reported on similar efforts by advocates proposing to retrofit carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology at North Dakota’s largest coal-fired generating plant. Coal Creek Station and its nearby mine employ almost 800 people; they see the technology as a “godsend.”
Clean air advocates, on the other hand, see it “as an expensive distraction from the urgent need to embrace cleaner options to help address climate change.”
With the infrastructure bill passed and other proposals to address climate change, powerful coal industry interests have increased efforts to advocate for CCS technology.
When I read about hopes for CCS technology, I think of the iconic Sidney Harris cartoon depicting two scientists at a chalk board full of equations. One says to the other, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two” while pointing to a statement among the equations that reads, “then a miracle occurs.”
Miracles, almost by definition, violate the Laws of Thermodynamics; CCS gets close to qualifying. To understand this, think of the often-told parable of a gossip seeking absolution for mistruths they have spread. Their spiritual advisor tells them to take a feather pillow to the top of a nearby hill and release the feathers to the wind.
The gossip returns and says, “That wasn’t too hard.”
“But that’s not your penance,” the advisor replies; “now go capture them all and sequester them back in the pillow.”
“That’s impossible!” gasps the gossip.
“My point exactly!” says the advisor.
That’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the concept of entropy: All things, including burning fossils, tend toward disorder. Only adding energy into the system can reverse the effect.
Green plants transform sunlight energy when they bind atmospheric carbon dioxide with water and make sugars. They and everything that eats them directly or indirectly use that energy building bodies and staying alive.
Burning fossil fuels formed over hundreds of millions of years releases that locked-away sunlight. It also, of course, liberates all that carbon dioxide captured long ago by green plants and sequestered underground through geological processes.
Reversing that with CCS requires a near-miraculous amount of energy. Ironically, some CCS advocates propose using wind-generated electricity to capture carbon dioxide emitted from coal. That reduces CCS’s carbon footprint but competes with other uses.
Advocates argue that capturing carbon dioxide on the way up a smokestack will increase CCS efficiency.
Picture grabbing feathers as they fly from that hilltop.
CCS technology aims to capture 90% of carbon dioxide from burning coal. The MIT Climate Portal estimates exhaust from a coal burning plant contains 300 times the carbon dioxide of surrounding air. Cutting that by 90% still increases atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The proposed solution: Aim for 99 percent!
The chances of that from the view of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Horsefeathers!
Steve Rissing is a professor emeritus in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University. steverissing@hotmail.com
In this episode of Green Japan we focus on the latest innovations to capture and recycle carbon and develop zero-carbon concrete.
Carbon dioxide is the main cause of global warming. In the western wing of Tomakomai port, Japan has shown that CO2 can be captured and stored. Experts are confident the technology implemented at the Tomakomai CCS demonstration project centre will be crucial for reaching net-zero emissions in Japan and worldwide.
“CCS is an acronym for Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage. It is a technology aimed at preventing global warming by capturing CO2 generated from industrial activities and storing it underground,” explains Nakajima Toshiaki, President of Japan CCS.
President of Japan CCS Nakajima Toshiaki explains carbon dioxide and storage technology.Euronews
The CO2 source is a gas supply facility at Idemitsu Kosan Hokkaido Refinery, adjacent to the Tomakomai CCS Center. A gas containing carbon dioxide is sent by pipeline to the Capture Facility.
Yamagishi Kazuyuki, from CCS, explains the process.
“We receive a maximum of 25 tonnes of CO2 per hour which is equivalent to 600 tonnes a day. Our target was to process 100,000 tonnes in one year. We achieved the injection of 300,000 tonnes two years ago.”
Once the gas containing CO2 arrives at the demonstration plant, CO2 is separated from the gas and captured by chemical absorption inside three towers, which are part of the main CCS facilities. The CO2 now needs to be stored.
“The captured CO2 is sent to the inlet of this well, after a certain amount of pressure is applied. Through this pipe, the CO2 is sent to the geological layers below the seabed,” Kazuyuki says.
The two injection wells of the project were drilled from onshore towards offshore sub-sea bed reservoirs. One well targeted a sandstone layer between the depths of 1,000 to 1,200 metres. The other one reached a volcanoclastic layer between 2,400 to 3,000 metres deep.
Japan is convinced this technology will become a key approach for reducing the impact of global warming once it reaches the implementation phase.
“"The International Energy Agency estimates in 2050 we'll have to be capable of storing over 7 billion tons of CO2 per year with CCS systems in order to achieve net-zero. This would allow to use fossil fuels in a cleaner way, or to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere and store it underground,” says Japan CCS President Nakajima Toshiaki. Carbon negative concrete
While CO2 can be captured before entering the atmosphere and stored in the ground, Japan has also found a way to use CO2 to produce a carbon negative concrete, called CO2-SUICOM.
“Ordinary concrete emits approximately 288 kg of CO2 per cubic metre during its production, but CO2-SUICOM has achieved minus 18kg,” says Watanabe Kenzo, the General Manager of the concrete and construction materials group, Kajima Technical Research Institute.
This is the first concrete in the world that is not only carbon negative, but is also capable of absorbing CO2 during the curing process.
The key to making this happen is the addition of a special material, which is a chemical by-product, and then exposing the concrete to CO2.
Developed in Japan, CO2-SUICOM is a carbon negative concrete.
Euronews
“We use CO2 gas instead of water for the CO2-SUICOM's curing process. CO2 is immobilised by bringing it into contact with the concrete while it is still hardening. We add a special mixture “γC2S”, we call it “magic powder” as it solidifies a large amount of CO2. The more we produce this “magic concrete” the more it reduces CO2 from the atmosphere,” says Kenzo.
This eco-friendly concrete has already been used in all sorts of infrastructure and building projects as a precast-material. SUICOM has already been used to build walls, ceiling panels and interlocking blocks. In the near future, developers intend to apply this technology to a wider range of construction materials. The carbon negative concrete could then be used as a common already-mixed concrete for cast-in place usage. This would open a new green way forward for construction.
Saturday, July 24, 2021
Norway starts work on carbon storage program — says it’s “absolutely necessary” The country believes simply reducing our emissions isn't enough -- we'll also need to sequester carbon underground.
Norway is investing 1.7 billion euros into a full-scale carbon capture, transport, and storage project. The project named “Longship” is now under construction, and Norway is inviting other countries to join the project.
Image credits: Departments of Energy and Climate Change. CCS
If we want to ensure a sustainable future without catastrophic climate damage, we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions — especially carbon dioxide. That can be done in several ways; one approach is to replace fossil fuel energy with renewable energy; another is to replace diesel cars with electric cars, or bicycles; changing our diets to less carbon-intensive foods can also make a big difference.
But there’s one area in which reducing emission has proven extremely difficult: factories — especially cement factories.
Cement alone represents around 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and, overall, 20% of global emissions come from heavy industries, which are typically factory-based). If cement facilities were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest emitter behind only China and the US. This is where carbon capture and storage (CCS) would come into play.
“According to the UN Panel on Climate Change, the capture, transport and storage of CO₂ emissions from the combustion of fossil energy and industrial production is crucial in order to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions,” the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy writes on the project’s page.
“For some industries, especially cement production and waste incineration, the capture and storage of CO₂ is the only way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
CCS is the process of capturing carbon dioxide and sequestering it underground. It works best when the CO₂ is captured from large point sources like (you’ve guessed it) factories. The technology could also be used to extract existing carbon from the atmosphere, but that technique is far less mature.
Image credits: Sask Power.
The aim is to prevent the release of carbon into the atmosphere and instead, inject it into geological formations where it would stay indefinitely.
The problem is that CCS is still expensive, and the technology is still emerging. Without a firm tax on carbon, the technology is pretty much a money sink. Besides, you also require the right geology to inject the carbon.
But Norway, a country that could become carbon-neutral as early as 2030, has the right suitable geological conditions, and is willing to invest money into a pioneering project, with the approval of the Norwegian Parliament. CCS is “absolutely necessary” if the world is to avoid runaway climate change, a state secretary told Dezeen.
“If we succeed in capturing and storing CO₂, it will be significantly cheaper to achieve the climate goals. Longship contributes in making this more feasible and less costly,” the project’s page writes. The carbon dioxide will be buried under the North Sea, into suitable bedrock. There is enough bedrock at the site to store Norway’s current emissions for a thousand years.
The government is also working with several companies. Northern Lights, the organization tasked with transporting the greenhouse gas and storing it under the sea, is already in discussion with several industrial partners. Reportedly, 60 companies are already interested in the project. The first carbon capture will happen at the Norcem cement factory in Brevik.
From Brevik, the CO₂ will be transported by ship to a new reception terminal in Øygarden in Hordaland. Then, the CO₂ will be sent through pipelines and permanently stored in a geological formation about 2,600 meters below the seabed. Northern Lights (a venture that involves Equinor, Shell, and Total) will realize the transport and storage of CO₂ in Longship. However, it's not clear how much such a service could cost.
This is an encouraging step, but in order for CCS to work, it requires international cooperation -- not just for the storage itself, but also for developing and commercializing new technology. Without CCS, reaching our emissions goals is exceedingly difficult -- but we're still just getting started.
According to the Global CCS Institute, in 2020, CCS operations had a capacity of about 40 million tons of CO2 per year, with another 50 million tons per year in development. In contrast, the world emits about 38 billion tonnes of CO2 every year.
Sunday, February 06, 2022
Enbridge teams up with Alberta First Nations on carbon capture project
Capital Power’s Genesee Generating Station, located west of Edmonton. (Supplied)
Enbridge has partnered with four Treaty Six Nations and the Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community to expand a proposed carbon capture and transportation project west of Edmonton.
In a Thursday announcement, Enbridge said the Open Access Wabamun Carbon Hub is being developed to both transport and store carbon, in support of recently announced carbon capture projects by Capital Power, Lehigh Cement, and others.
The Alexander First Nation, Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, Enoch Cree Nation, and Paul First Nation recently formed the First Nation Capital Investment Partnership (FNCIP) to pursue ownership in major infrastructure projects. The partnership with Enbridge on the Hub is the FNCIP’s first such project.
“This path creates an opportunity to generate wealth, but more importantly it allows sustainable economic sovereignty for our communities,” said Chief George Arcand Jr. of Alexander First Nation in a release. “We’re looking forward to working with industry leaders who share our values of environmental stewardship and to collaborate with Enbridge on world-scale carbon transportation and storage infrastructure investments.”
The hub would transport carbon emissions like those from the Lehigh Cement plant in Edmonton by pipeline, to be stored by Enbridge. According to Enbridge, that project alone could capture up to 780,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
Combined, the emissions from Capital Power and Lehigh’s projects could avoid nearly four million tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions.
Enbridge and its partners haven't publicly said what the project will cost, except that it expects to invest "hundreds of millions of dollars."
The company said pending regulatory approvals, it could be up and running by 2025.
Alberta's investment in carbon capture technology not worth bang for buck, environmental group argues
Alex Antoneshyn CTVNewsEdmonton.ca Digital Producer Updated Jan. 21, 2022
A new report accuses the oil-and-gas industry of greenwashing the impact of carbon capture and storage – also known as CCS – technology, pointing to an oil-processing complex in Alberta that emits more carbon than it buries in the ground.
The report by Global Witness argues CCS is a poor substitute for phasing out fossil fuels and an expensive undertaking that the governments of Alberta and Canada partly funded.
"We think this really isn't sustainable, it's not climate friendly, and it shows that governments across the world, not just in Canada, mustn't support fossil hydrogen," report author Dominic Eagleton told CTV News Edmonton. "They should boost more genuinely sustainable alternatives to fossil hydrogen, such as renewables."
Global Witness, a non-government organization based in the U.K., says its goal is to create a "more sustainable, just and equal planet."
Eagleton, a senior campaigner with the group, compared the amount of emissions produced at Shell's Scotford Complex in Fort Saskatchewan, northeast of Edmonton, with the amount of carbon dioxide its CCS system – called Quest – removes. He says the site was chosen because of the data publicly available on it.
Global Witness found that between 2014 and 2019, Quest stored five million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or CO2. During the same period, it says the Scotford Complex produced in total 7.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, including methane. The data was pulled from reports submitted by Shell to the Alberta government, as well as data crunched by the Pembina Institute.
Eagleton calls the 2.5-million tonne difference a "wake-up call for the world."
Shell believes Quest hints at what is possible in the future.
'A DEMONSTRATION PROJECT'
Shell operates Quest on behalf of its partners mining oil sands in northern Alberta and refutes Global Witness' assertion it overpromised Quest's potential.
In addition to the CCS system, Scotford Complex consists of an upgrader that turns bitumen from those oil sands into lighter crude products, a refinery that makes fuels and other products from synthetic crude oil, and a chemical plant.
In order to upgrade bitumen, Shell makes hydrogen, producing carbon dioxide in the process.
Quest's job is to capture and liquefy CO2 before trapping it two kilometres below ground.
Quest has stored about six million tonnes of carbon in its six-and-a-half years – faster and cheaper than expected, according to the company. However, the system was never meant to capture more than one third of the Scotford upgrader's emissions, Shell maintains.
When Quest was built, it was touted as the world's first commercial-scale CCS facility at an oil sands operation. And, as one of the first facilities of its kind, Quest isn't able to capture and store as much carbon as is now possible – around 90 per cent, the industry estimates.
"We were there working with the government to really demonstrate Quest as a proof point that CCS does work. Not only in the capture in a brownfield site, but also the storage complex," Shell's national CCS lead Tim Wiwchar told CTV News Edmonton.
"We called it a demonstration project."
Shell is currently planning a CCS project at Scotford that would have a storage capacity of 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or the above-90 per cent capture levels industry says current technology now allows.
The company is expected to decide to move forward or not with Polaris in late 2023.
'A FRACTION OF THOSE EMISSIONS'
Quest cost $1.35 billion, $845 million of which came from the provincial and federal governments. Some of the provincial dollars, contingent Quest's performance, continue to flow in.
And more dollars will flow to similar projects in the future.
But Eagleton says it is misleading for the fossil fuel industry to present hydrogen production and carbon capture as favourably as it does when CCS can't transform the oil-and-gas sector into a zero-emitting industry.
The senior campaigner at Global Witness found Quest only captured 48 per cent of carbon emissions produced by the Scotford complex – which he called "a fossil hydrogen plant," which Shell disputed – and 39 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
"Trying to apply carbon capture systems to the rest of the world's fossil hydrogen plants could be a disaster for the climate because it might only capture a fraction of those emissions," Eagleton told CTV News Edmonton.
He also believes investing more in carbon-capture infrastructure is a bet in technology that hasn't yet proven itself, when compared to things like wind and solar power.
"It's these options that will take us to a safer climate and not more investment in fossil-fuel infrastructure, which is what fossil hydrogen will entail," Eagleton added.
"Given…that CCS is required in other industries that go beyond fossil fuels -- fertilizer, cement, chemicals, those are all going to be required into the future -- that again, this is a proof point using an oil and gas facility that CCS does work," Wiwchar responded.
"[Quest] has captured over six million tonnes of CO2. That's six million tonnes that would have been emitted from the upgrader…had we not built Quest."
Alberta's energy minister did not respond to CTV News Edmonton's request for comment.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Touria Izri
Quest carbon capture and storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan Alta., on Nov. 6, 2015. (Jason Franson / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Monday, January 24, 2022
Shell’s massive carbon capture facility in Canada emits far more than it captures, study says
The "Quest" plant in Alberta, Canada, owned by oil giant Shell, has previously been touted as a "thriving example" of how CCS is working to significantly reduce carbon emissions.
However, an investigation by watchdog group Global Witness, showed that while 5 million tons of carbon dioxide had been prevented from escaping into the atmosphere at the plant since 2015, it released a further 7.5 million tons of greenhouse gases over the same period.
In response, a spokesperson for Shell told CNBC via email that the analysis was "simply wrong."
Provided by CNBC Signage for Royal Dutch Shell Plc at a refinery near the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday, May 25, 2021.
One of the only facilities in the world that uses carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) to reduce the emissions of hydrogen production has been found to emit far more greenhouse gas emissions than it captures.
The Quest plant in Alberta, Canada, owned by oil giant Shell and designed to capture carbon emissions from oil sands operations and safely store them underground, has previously been touted as a "thriving example" of how CCS is working to significantly reduce carbon emissions.
However, an investigation by watchdog group Global Witness, published last week, showed that while 5 million tons of carbon dioxide had been prevented from escaping into the atmosphere at the plant since 2015, it also released 7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over the same period.
The investigation noted that, per year, that's the equivalent carbon footprint of 1.2 million gasoline cars.
It means just 48% of the plant's carbon emissions were captured, according to the report. That's far short of the 90% carbon capture rate promised by the industry for these types of projects in general.
In response to the report, a spokesperson for Shell told CNBC via email that Global Witness' analysis was "simply wrong" and stressed that the Quest facility was designed to capture around a third of carbon dioxide emissions. Energy transition
Proponents of CCS believe these technologies will play an important role in meeting global energy and climate goals. And using CCS alongside hydrogen production, which is sometimes referred to as "blue hydrogen" or "fossil hydrogen," has been pushed by the oil and gas industry as a potential solution to the energy transition.
Climate researchers, campaigners and environmental advocacy groups have repeatedly admonished CCS as a climate solution, however, arguing that not only do these technologies have a history of failure, but backing these projects prolongs our reliance on the fossil fuel industry and distracts from a much-needed pivot to renewable alternatives.
"Oil and gas companies' promotion of fossil hydrogen is a fig leaf for them to carry on with their toxic practices – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels," Dominic Eagleton, senior gas campaigner at Global Witness, said in a statement.
"The single best way for companies like Shell to help tackle the climate crisis is to phase out all fossil fuel operations, rather than find ways to hide their climate-wrecking activity behind false solutions."
The burning of fossil fuels such as oil and gas is the chief driver of the climate emergency and researchers have repeatedly stressed that the best weapon to tackle rising global temperatures is to cut greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.
Yet, even as politicians and business leaders publicly acknowledge the necessity of transitioning to renewable alternatives, current policy trends show that our reliance on fossil fuels is not likely to go away — or even decline — any time soon. 'Demonstration project'
Shell's Quest CCS facility opened in late 2015 near Edmonton, Alberta and is part of the group's Scotford complex, where hydrogen is produced for use in refining oil sands bitumen (a type of petroleum deposit). The Quest plant does not cover the emissions for the entire facility.
"Our Quest facility was designed some years ago as a demonstration project to prove the underlying CCS concept, while capturing around a third of CO2 emissions. It is not a hydrogen production facility," the Shell spokesperson said.
"The hydrogen projects we're planning – like Polaris – will use a new technology that captures more than 90% of emissions. Global Witness are comparing apples with pears."
Shell announced plans in July last year to build a large-scale CCS project called Polaris at its Scotford refinery and chemicals plant. The initial phase is expected to start operations in the middle of the decade subject to an investment decision by the company next year. A 'serious blow' to fossil hydrogen
Global Witness said its findings are likely to deliver a "serious blow" to fossil hydrogen proponents pushing for more public funds to support its use, noting that $654 million of the $1 billion costs of Shell's Quest facility stemmed from Canadian government subsidies.
Eagleton described the analysis as "yet another nail in the coffin" for claims made by the oil and gas industry that fossil hydrogen is climate-friendly.
"Governments cannot let the wool be pulled over their eyes to invest vital public funds in projects that will not deliver what's needed to avert climate disaster. Instead, they should use that money to end our reliance on fossil fuels and direct it towards renewable alternatives," Eagleton said.
Commenting on the report, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said via Twitter on Saturday: "This is exactly what happens when people in power care more about their reputation and imagery than to actually reduce emissions."
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
The role of hydrogen in our low-carbon transition
Hydrogen fuel has long been hailed as the silver bullet that will free us from fossil fuels, but it's time for a reality check on its production and use in a low-carbon economy .
Hydrogen is being hyped as an easy way to provide low-carbon energy for heating, transportation and industry. But as this briefing shows, while hydrogen will be an important component of the low-carbon transition, its production will necessarily be limited over the next decade and it should be prioritised for uses where there’s no low-carbon alternative, such as industry. In other sectors, such as heating, alternative approaches will be needed. Introduction
The UK has a legal obligation to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest, although Friends of the Earth and others are calling for this target to be achieved earlier. Regardless of the end date, it is cumulative emissions that matter in the fight against climate breakdown, which is why the UK’s Climate Change Act has interim targets in the form of 5-year carbon budgets.
The current fifth carbon budget mandates a 57% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 but will need adjusting because of the new net-zero target. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) will make recommendations in December 2020 for the scale of cuts required by 2030 (the mid-point of the fifth carbon budget), as well as making recommendations for 2035 (the sixth carbon budget).
The role of hydrogen in meeting the reduction targets is increasingly being discussed.
For example: The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) recently published a report1 stating that the cheapest route to zero-carbon power is 90% renewable energy generation, supported by burning hydrogen to make electricity when renewable energy production is low. It says that using hydrogen reduces total energy system costs by around 20%. It’s also increasingly suggested that hydrogen could be used for zero-carbon production of steel, cement and other industrial products. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies has recently published a detailed briefing2 on this issue. Hydrogen is being promoted for use in some transportation, such as trains and heavy goods vehicles. Over recent years the gas industry has been promoting a switch for home heating from natural gas to hydrogen3 (although in doing so it has been criticised for significantly under-estimating the costs, not fully considering the risks of leakages from home pipework not suited for hydrogen, and underplaying the challenges involved).2 See below for more discussion of hydrogen in heating.
The future role of hydrogen is broadly accepted but the question of how it should be produced remains. This choice could have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Key decisions must be made soon and making the wrong choices could perpetuate our reliance on fossil fuels. The environmental impacts of hydrogen production
There are two broad routes for hydrogen production: From fossil fuels, either gas using steam methane reformation (SMR) or coal. This is sometimes known as "blue hydrogen." By electrolysis, using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This is sometimes known as "green" hydrogen, particularly if the electricity used is from renewable sources.
Virtually all current global hydrogen production is made directly from fossil fuels. Only 2% of global hydrogen production is from electrolysis and it accounts for only 4% in the UK.
Production of hydrogen from fossil fuels is a carbon-intensive process
According to the CCC, hydrogen produced from natural gas by SMR has a carbon-emissions intensity of around 285 gCO₂/kWh. This excludes the impact of fugitive emissions from extraction of natural gas, estimated to be 15-70 gCO2e/kWh,4 although this could be 25-40% higher according to recent research.5 Hydrogen from coal gasification has an intensity of around 675 gCO₂/kWh.
In comparison, the carbon-emissions intensity of the electricity grid in 2019 was less than 200 gCO₂/kWh and is declining fast. Emissions from the global production of hydrogen are more than double the UK’s total territorial emissions.6
Carbon capture and storage will not deliver zero carbon
Hydrogen production from fossil fuels can be partly decarbonised by carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, doing so brings an energy penalty and extra costs. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme,7 CCS rates are generally designed to be 85-90% efficient (ie 10-15% of the carbon emissions aren’t captured). The IEA report suggested that while it should be technically possible to achieve capture rates of 99% using CCS, doing so brings an additional efficiency penalty for the power plant, meaning that even more energy is needed to produce the same amount of hydrogen. This in turn increases the amount of upstream fugitive emissions from the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels. Low-carbon hydrogen production
Electrolysis using renewable electricity has negligible carbon emissions, although if it uses grid electricity, its emissions will be higher than the carbon-emissions intensity of the grid, because the production process is not 100% efficient. That’s why it’s better to use electricity directly, in electric vehicles for example, rather than converting it to hydrogen. As an illustration, in 2018 hydrogen made using grid electricity would’ve had a carbon-emissions intensity of 288-388 gCO₂/kWh, when the grid’s intensity was 216 gCO₂/kWh.
The carbon intensity of hydrogen production from the electricity grid is therefore already lower than hydrogen made from fossil fuels (see chart below). This difference will only increase over time as the carbon-emissions intensity of the electricity grid reduces. In 2019 it fell below 200 gCO₂/kWh and it’s forecast to drop below 100 gCO₂/kWh by 2030 and 41 gCO2/kWh by 2035.
Carbon intensity of various hydrogen production methods compared to natural gas. Note that data for natural gas include fugitive emissions from natural gas extraction. CCS assumed to be 95% capture rate.
Scaling up production and the real cost of producing hydrogen
Hydrogen production using natural gas (SMR) is an established process. This has the advantage that manufacturing capacity can be ramped up relatively quickly (the H21 project envisages a 12.5 GW hydrogen from natural gas plant, built in a modular 1.25 GW plant each year from 2026), but the downside is that there are unlikely to be significant cost reductions. However, the necessary CCS elements are still in development and in practice unlikely to be available at scale until the 2030s.
The government’s action plan for CCS states that "our ambition is that the UK should have the option to deploy [CCS] at scale during the 2030s, subject to the costs coming down sufficiently."8 The recent Budget stated it will invest "at least £800 million" for a CCS infrastructure fund that will support efforts to "establish CCS in at least two UK sites, one by the mid-2020s, a second by 2030." Will CCS be at scale in time?
Given the chequered past of developing CCS in the UK, it would be a brave bet that the UK would have large-scale operational CCS facilities by 2030, when significant inroads to decarbonising heating need to be made.
Will hydrogen from natural gas be affordable?
The cost of making hydrogen from natural gas with CCS is also uncertain, because no plant is operational. One recent proposal to the government, for a CCS plant based in Aberdeen with its associated existing infrastructure, estimated the cost at 8 p/kWh, with peak hydrogen production of 6 tonnes/hour from a 200 MW plant.9 Unsurprisingly, this is considerably higher than wholesale natural gas prices, which average 1-2 p/kWh.10Such increased cost would be passed onto the consumer, significantly increasing the price of gas for home heating and making it at least as expensive as electricity.
Electrolysis – scope for cost reductions?
Hydrogen production using electrolysis is a newer technology, which will make it harder to scale up production quickly. However, a recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance (NEF) report says that the cost of electrolysers in North America and Europe has fallen by 40% since 2014, and costs are even lower in China (80% cheaper than those in the West).11
British company ITM has recently secured government support with others to develop a modular 100 MW electrolyser system with peak hydrogen production of 40 tonnes/day (this hydrogen could supply 0.6 TWh/year). Although this is a tiny fraction of the amount needed in the future and less than 2% of current UK hydrogen production, the project aims to "validate a complete production system capable of delivering hundreds of megawatts of electrolysers per year."12 This is the beginning of a process to start scaling up the production of hydrogen from electricity.
Hydrogen production from electrolysis also has the advantage that it can be located near to use, as it only needs an electricity supply and no carbon capture facilities. For example, it could be located at a train depot for hydrogen refuelling. Cost of making hydrogen by electrolysis uncertain
As this is a newer technology, it has scope for significant further cost reductions, as has been seen in the renewable energy and battery sectors. The CCC suggested the cost might be around 6-8 p/kWh, although it also forecast much lower costs for hydrogen from natural gas with CCS at around 4 p/kWh. The more recent Bloomberg NEF report suggests that the costs of producing hydrogen by electrolysis may be similar to producing it from natural gas with CCS by 2030 and cheaper by 2050.11
According to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies: "the levelised cost of SMR/CCS is likely to be significantly lower [than electrolysis] at current gas and electricity prices … In the longer term, assuming appropriate scale up and cost reduction of renewable electricity and electrolysis, it will be preferable for [electrolysis] to become the dominant production technology to minimise the continued use of fossil fuels."2
The NIC also sees natural gas being the main source for hydrogen production, albeit alongside electrolysis when electricity prices are low.1 A Navigant Consulting analysis on behalf of the Electricity Network Association assumes that hydrogen production costs will fall to 5-6 p/kWh by 2050, for both hydrogen from natural gas and electrolysis using dedicated renewables.13 Will hydrogen be affordable?
It’s likely that for at least the next decade, making hydrogen from natural gas will be cheaper than from electrolysis, but this may not be true in 10 years’ time. Both approaches are more expensive than natural gas, which poses affordability questions for some future uses, such as in households, where it could increase levels of fuel poverty. Significant scale-up of either approach is highly unlikely over at least the next 10 years, but for different reasons. The lack of CCS facilities at scale will hold back production of hydrogen from natural gas, whereas electrolysis is a developing technology that’s still exploring how to build capacity at scale quickly.
Current and future demands for hydrogen production
The UK currently produces and uses around 700,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year (equivalent to around 29 TWh). This is produced from natural gas using carbon-intensive processes without CCS. Nearly all of it is for refining fuels and ammonia production. Replacement of this with low-carbon hydrogen would be a sensible priority.
In the future, potential additional demand would be very significantly higher than this.
Decarbonising electricity
The NIC has recommended that the best low-cost route for decarbonising electricity production is by achieving 90% renewable energy by 2050, backed up by hydrogen combustion in 55 GW of turbines, producing 77 TWh of electricity.
Decarbonising industry
The CCC suggests up to 82 TWh of hydrogen might be needed by industry.4 In 2018, the Hybrit project in Sweden started constructing a pilot plant to manufacture primary steel using hydrogen produced via electrolysis, aiming to have a fully commercialised carbon-free process by 2035. Cement production requires intense heat (>1600 °C), which could be provided by either an electric or hydrogen kiln furnace. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies says that since neither has yet been developed at commercial scale, it’s not yet clear which option will prove more cost effective. The chemicals industry is already a significant user of hydrogen. Emissions reductions can be made by increasing the use of hydrogen through process changes. A report commissioned by the European Chemical Industry Council said that "hydrogen is a key enabler for a major part of low-carbon technologies."14 Natural gas is also used in glass and ceramics production, although whether these can be switched to hydrogen is currently unclear according to the Institute of Engineering and Technology.6
Decarbonising transport
Hydrogen has been suggested as a route for decarbonising shipping (in the form of ammonia fuel), long-distance HGVs, trains, buses and cars. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies suggests that batteries are likely to be a better option for trains in most cases, with batteries recharging when travelling on electrified track. Where the distance between recharging points exceeds 200 km, trains that also have hydrogen fuel cells make more sense.2 Similarly, electric buses and cars are far preferable to hydrogen-powered ones.
Is it realistic to power the whole domestic sector with hydrogen?
Northern Gas Networks’ H21 project is an extreme example, proposing wholescale switching to hydrogen, with all home heating provided by boilers burning hydrogen.
By 2050, it would require around 8 million tonnes of hydrogen (equivalent to 300 TWh) to heat 3.7 million homes and businesses in the north of England. Production of this amount would require 140 GW of electrolysers powered by wind (current UK wind capacity is around 22 GW). And it would consume a vast quantity of water, equivalent to the annual consumption of 1.2 million homes.
Alternatively, producing this hydrogen from natural gas would require around 60 plants the size of the largest in the world,6 and these would not be low carbon. The cost for householders would be substantial, potentially driving many more homes into fuel poverty. It would require the replacement of all boilers and gas cookers, and potentially all pipework in the home.
Decarbonising domestic heating
Another way to start decarbonising heating is by adding hydrogen to the gas supply, up to around 20%. The safety and practicalities of this are currently being tested. More than 20% could be added, but would require changing boilers and gas cookers. But even if this extra hydrogen was produced by renewable energy, it would only have a small impact on reducing emissions.
The most sustainable home heating approach is to use electricity largely or wholly, with hydrogen either as a domestic back-up (using hybrid heat pumps that can switch between electricity and gas) or to produce electricity when renewable sources are low. The former is more energy efficient (because using hydrogen directly in the home is more efficient than burning it to make electricity) and is the route preferred by the CCC,4 but requires ongoing use of the gas grid, whereas the latter approach doesn’t.
Viability
Hydrogen is needed for the move to net zero, replacing natural gas in parts of the energy system where electrification isn’t feasible or is prohibitively expensive. But scaling up hydrogen production will take time, and in practice hydrogen production from natural gas with CCS or electrolysis will be very limited before 2030 and still limited for the decade after.
Yet even meeting existing carbon budgets means more action is needed before 2030 on reducing emissions, and significantly more if the CCC recommends deeper cuts by 2030, which it should. Prioritise using hydrogen when there are no practicable alternatives
Low-carbon hydrogen use should be prioritised where no alternative readily exists, such as shipping, industry and some heavy goods vehicles. Uses where electric options exist should use this approach, including domestic heating and most transport.
In practice, this means: In homes the focus must be on energy efficiency and electrification via the installation of heat pumps (with an ambitious stretch target of 10 million installed by 2030). Friends of the Earth, the Energy Savings Trust, and others are calling for all homes to have at least a C-rated Energy Performance Certificate by 2030. Hydrogen should only be used at times of peak demand, either directly through the gas grid for use in hybrid heat pumps or for production of electricity. In transport a faster transition to electric vehicles is needed, including necessary investments in grid infrastructure. Localised hydrogen production for some heavy transport will be necessary where a switch to electric isn’t possible. For shipping, hydrogen converted to ammonia is likely to be the most practical route. In industry a switch to electricity should be prioritised where possible, and hydrogen where not. This will have an impact on costs, so measures to ensure that UK manufacturers are not disadvantaged by this move should be taken.
The CCC’s "Further Ambition" scenario suggested that around 270 TWh of hydrogen is needed, with industry using 120 TWh, shipping using 70 TWh, 53 TWh for peak heating and 25 TWh in transport. It envisages only 2 TWh for electricity production, unlike the 77 TWh suggested by the more recent NIC report. The CCC will be producing a new analysis this September and may upgrade its recommended use of hydrogen. Rapid decarbonisation requires a lot more hydrogen
Based on the CCC’s "Further Ambition" scenario and the more recent NIC recommendation of a 90% renewable energy grid, it’s clear that the UK needs to produce a lot more hydrogen (equivalent to more than 300 TWh).
Furthermore, to reduce emissions as deeply as possible requires this to be met through electrolysis rather than natural gas, because of the fugitive emissions from natural gas extraction and transportation. This will require around 140 GW of windfarms, in addition to the renewables needed to decarbonise the electricity grid to meet other demands. Scale of renewable energy required
The NIC report suggested up to 237 GW of renewable energy, producing 530 TWh of electricity, will be needed by 2050 to meet the government’s net-zero goal. If all the hydrogen required (see above) were produced by electrolysis, this amount of renewable energy would need to increase significantly.
Currently, total renewable capacity (excluding biomass) is only about 34 GW. In other words, we need to see more than a seven-fold increase in renewable power, yet currently the UK is aiming to increase renewable energy capacity only fourfold by 2050.15
Hydrogen is needed to reach net zero. To meet net-zero ambitions, it should be produced by electrolysis. For this to happen, national and local government need to support much higher deployment rates of renewable energy than they’re currently achieving. ANNEX
Hydrogen supply projects supported by the government
In February 2020, the UK government announced financial support for several hydrogen production projects across the UK,16 summarised below. A wider range of projects is funded by industry, the UK government, Ofgem and devolved nations in the Institute of Engineering and Technology "Transitioning to Hydrogen" report.6
Dolphyn – involves producing hydrogen from seawater powered by offshore wind in deep waters off the north of Scotland. The government says the funding will enable the detailed design of a 2 MW prototype system.
HyNet – looks at producing hydrogen from natural gas with CCS and blending the hydrogen into the existing gas grid at volumes that don’t require changes to appliances. The project has been given £7.48 million to permit further project development including engineering design to deliver a "shovel ready" project. Of two potential locations – the Mersey and the Humber – the Mersey is seen as the most attractive.
Gigastack – invovles producing hydrogen from renewable power, using electricity from Orsted’s Hornsea Two offshore windfarm to generate renewable hydrogen for the Phillips 66 Humber Refinery. The £7.5 million funding will also support the development of plans for large-scale production of electrolysers.
Acorn – looks at producing hydrogen from natural gas with CCS for blending into gas consumed in Aberdeen. The £2.7 million grant will enable further engineering studies.
HyPER – this project has been awarded £7.4 million for the pilot development of a novel process for hydrogen production from natural gas developed by the Gas Technology Institute at Cranfield University.
