Industry Continues to Make Progress on Carbon Capture

Abstract

Does the world really want carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS)? The answer is an unequivocal “Yes,” say the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations, and many oil and gas companies, among others. The consensus is that rapid scaleup of CCUS is essential for meeting climate and emissions targets while not crippling economic growth. As much as 450 million Mt of CO2 could be captured, used, and stored globally with a commercial incentive as low as $40/Mt, according to the IEA. Yet this potential remains largely untapped. “It’s a chicken-and-egg problem,” said Dan Cole, vice president of commercial development and governmental relations at Denbury Resources. “To address the challenges, more projects need to be built, but more aren’t being built,” said•Cole. • The reasons are many. The engineering sector is trying to scale up relatively immature technologies outside of niche projects and experiencing growing pains. Uncertainty around policy and return on investment (ROI), or lack thereof, is pushing back or halting large-scale projects. Public sentiment is pushing ever harder against carbon of any type in favor of renewable energy. CCUS encompasses four interrelated areas, each of which face its own distinct technological, financial, and perceptual challenges. Capture Transportation Storage Use/Reuse Fig. 1 illustrates the CCUS process. Carbon Capture—the Least Mature Area Approximately two-thirds of the total cost of CCUS is attributed to carbon capture. Additionally, capturing and compressing CO2 is estimated to increase the cost per watt-hour of energy produced by 21–91% for fossil fuel power plants, and applying the technology to existing plants would be more expensive, especially if they are far from a sequestration site. Of all the components of the CCUS process, capture is considered the least technologically mature. Belief is widespread that optimizing a CO2 capture process would significantly increase the feasibility of CCUS because transport and storage technologies are more•mature. Capturing CO2 is most effective at point sources such as large fossil fuel or biomass energy facilities, industries with major CO2 emissions, natural gas processing, synthetic fuel plants, and fossil fuel-based hydrogen production plants. CO2 also can be captured directly from the air through direct air capture (DAC) rather than at a point source. Carbon dioxide can be separated out of air or flue gas with absorption, adsorption, or membrane gas separation technologies. Absorption, or carbon scrubbing, with amines is currently the dominant capture technology. Membrane and adsorption technologies are still in the developmental research and pilot plant•stages.