Headline: The Deployment of Carbon Capture and Utilisation Technologies Takes a Key Step Forward

International Effort Establishes Global Standards to Meet Tech’s Growth and Opportunity Across Sectors

On October 1st, 2019, representatives from EIT Climate-KIC, the Global CO2 Initiative, the Phoenix Initiative, and other interested stakeholders gathered in Brussels to discuss the future of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) assessment methodologies, a critical step in unlocking R&D and commercialisation efforts for this growing climate solution.

Carbon can be used as a raw material in industrial processes, such as in the manufacture of building materials and chemicals. istock/vm

01.10.2019

This workshop is part of an initiative by the Global CO2 Initiative, EIT Climate-KIC, the Phoenix Initiative, and other European organisations to harmonise their individual efforts to create assessment guidelines for carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies across sectors by determining their economic and environmental impacts.

The workshop was hosted by the IASS as part of its contribution to the CO2nsistent project, a three-year effort initiated and funded by Global CO2 Initiative and EIT Climate-KIC with the aim to provide an extensive tool for the assessment of CCU.

CCU involves the capture of CO2, a potent greenhouse gas, from the air or point sources and its subsequent conversion into products or services. It has been touted as a technology that promotes connections between industrial sectors, offering economic opportunity and environmental impact reduction. Most importantly, when fully deployed, carbon management in general is set to play an important role in the future as one of the solutions to mitigate the climate crisis all while creating a new economy. As CCU gains momentum as a possible solution to reduce global CO2 emissions, the need for a standardised assessment of CCU implementation grows more urgent.

The establishment of guidelines by multiple individual parties is an issue for the standardisation of CCU assessment. Today’s meeting helped clarify whether the individually developed guidelines are consistent with each other. Potential inconsistencies in CCU guidelines could lead to confusion in decision-making when time comes for large-scale CCU implementation. During an earlier workshop at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in April 2019, the Global CO2 Initiative, EIT Climate-KIC, the US National Energy Technology Laboratory, and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory successfully addressed guidelines harmonisation within the context of ISO standards and multiple national efforts within the United States.

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Der Chemiekonzern Bayer stellt bereits Produkte aus CO2 her.

Economic activities and consumer behaviour in developed countries are currently based mainly on the use of fossil-based raw materials, and their emissions are largely responsible for anthropogenic climate change. In efforts to reduce human effects on the climate, the avoidance of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is and remains the most important measure. But high CO2 emissions go hand in hand with a demand for carbon in the form of many of the goods that we need on a daily basis, for example for the production of plastics or fuels. Can it therefore make sense to consider the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) as a source of carbon? Since the 1970s, scientists have been researching carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. The aim of these technologies is to re-cycle the CO2 contained in emissions as a feedstock for industrial processes. This captured CO2 could replace fossil-based carbon as a component of materials and energy carriers, thereby creating a carbon cycle.

Prototyp eines supraleitenden Stromkabels.

In the coming decades, the development of renewable energy sources (RES) such as wind and solar will play a major role in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and making our energy system more sustainable. But the places where RES are available or would be most efficient are often located far away from the densely populated and industrial areas where the energy is needed: on the open sea in the case of offshore wind and in sunnier climes in the case of solar. This means that the construction of new power lines needs to go hand in hand with RES development. In Germany for instance, expanding the electrical grid has become a crucial precondition for the success of the Energiewende.

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Headline: The Deployment of Carbon Capture and Utilisation Technologies Takes a Key Step Forward

International Effort Establishes Global Standards to Meet Tech’s Growth and Opportunity Across Sectors

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Sabine Letz