![]() However, with the technology constantly improving and costs coming down, it remains “an interesting option” that could become viable in the medium to long-term, perhaps within a decade. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is much lower than from factory exhausts, so it currently costs roughly five to ten times as much to extract one tonne of carbon via DAC as it does from its normal industrial processes, he estimates. However, this is still some way from the point where it makes economic sense, emphasises Phillips. In theory, capture technology related to Aker’s could also be applied to take carbon dioxide straight out of the air, known as direct air capture (DAC). “Proof that you can capture carbon in an economically viable way is starting to convince people that the technology works.” Taking carbon dioxide from the air It is also eyeing up the North American market, which is “now just one or two years behind Europe”, says Phillips. Over the next few years, it plans to expand geographically, first growing in Norway, Denmark and the UK, before looking to set up in other countries such as Sweden. The solvent is then heated to release the carbon dioxide, which is then typically stored in liquid form, before being transported for storage.Īker has cut the cost of the technology to the point where in some cases it is already economically viable given European carbon allowance prices, and has managed to win several contracts in northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the UK. This has enabled it to develop a way to extract carbon at source by treating the exhaust gas from factories and power plants with a proprietary solvent blend which absorbs the carbon dioxide. Aker Carbon Capture, a spin-off from Norwegian engineering firm Aker Solutions, is a pioneer in this area: Aker was originally involved in helping the Norwegian oil company Statoil (now Equinor) inject carbon dioxide into oil wells to lower emissions for oil production in the late 1990s, “which helped lead us to start researching carbon capture in the 2000s”, says David Phillips, head of UK and investor relations at Aker Carbon Capture. Post-combustion technology, which captures the carbon after it is burned, is more widely implemented already. There are several pre-combustion schemes under way at the moment – including those under development at Teesside, Humberside and Liverpool in the UK – that aim to store emissions and produce low-carbon hydrogen for industrial use. These are separated and only the hydrogen is burned. The fuel – typically methane or gasified coal – is converted into a mix of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Pre-combustion capture involves removing carbon dioxide from fuels before they are fully combusted. ![]() These have “decades of evidence to show that they are feasible” and are also “increasingly economical”. ![]() The two leading approachesĪt the moment, the two approaches to carbon capture that are furthest along are pre-combustion and post-combustion carbon capture, says Stuart Haszeldine, professor of carbon capture at Edinburgh University. We should see “a thriving global sector made up of new companies by the end of the decade”. Carbon removal will form the basis of a large new industry, with the development of the market for carbon emissions creating new business models, he says. Interest from the private sector is also booming, with a “thriving ecosystem of startups” that are “attracting early-stage risk capital from a number of climate-focused venture funds, corporate investors and philanthropic foundations”. Governments around the world are investing large sums of money in this area with the US Department of Energy alone putting $3.3bn into various carbon reduction technologies, says Shebbeare. To put this into context, the output of the global oil industry grew 42-fold between 19. Shebbeare estimates that this will need to grow 200-fold over the next three decades to an annual figure of ten billion tonnes. Much of this carbon dioxide is used in the oil industry rather than stored permanently. ![]() Currently, the carbon capture market amounts to roughly 40-50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, or just 0.1% of human-related emissions, says Andrew Shebbeare of Counteract, which invests in a range of carbon removal technologies. Thus the necessity of continuing to operate at least some carbon emitting industries means that a large amount of carbon will need to be captured if net zero is to become a reality. ![]()
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