{"id":35879,"date":"2023-10-06T12:01:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T11:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=35879"},"modified":"2023-10-06T12:05:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T11:05:29","slug":"success-of-initiate-project-using-carbon-capture-and-utilisation-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/success-of-initiate-project-using-carbon-capture-and-utilisation-technology\/35879\/","title":{"rendered":"The success of the INITIATE project using carbon capture and utilisation technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antonio La Mantia, Director of Communications and Events, and Anastasios Perimenis, Secretary General at CO2<\/sub> Value Europe, explore the INITIATE project that uses carbon capture and utilisation to contribute to a climate-neutral and circular economy.<\/h2>\n

Scientists estimate that roughly 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted globally each year. This gives us a sense of the immense amount of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions going into the atmosphere yearly without being seen or very well perceived by the public.<\/p>\n

To grasp the scale of this phenomenon, imagine putting on magic glasses able to show you just a tonne of these CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions. We would then see a cube of about 8x8m (almost as tall, wide, and long as a utility pole) filled with carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

This enormous CO2<\/sub>\u00a0landfill floating above our heads is identified by the global scientific community as the primary driver of climate change. However, the good news is that what has been considered so far as a waste product can be captured and become a lower-cost feedstock for several industries.<\/p>\n

Carbon capture and utilisation technology<\/h3>\n

Thanks to a broad portfolio of existing and developing carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies, carbon dioxide can be captured and converted into a feedstock<\/a> to create essential products. This is particularly true for the chemical sectors, including the production of chemicals, synthetic fuels and polymers, and at the same time for the energy sector, as it can provide useful storage solutions.<\/p>\n

The most promising aspect of these technologies is not only that they can reduce CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions and avoid emissions but also that they can create a circular carbon economy able to de-fossilise our society, as captured CO2<\/sub>\u00a0is used by the industry as an alternative carbon feedstock to create different fuels and chemicals which are part of our daily life, via the so-called Power-to-X approach.<\/p>\n

This approach sees the use of renewable electricity (Power), water and carbon dioxide as a feedstock to convert CO2<\/sub>\u00a0into products (X), like fuels, chemicals or commodity blocks. Against this context, first comes the source of CO2<\/sub>, which can be either an industrial point source like steel mills, incinerators, cement factories or the air via the so-called direct air capture. Then the approach, which can be electrochemical, thermochemical or biological, is able to form low and high-carbon molecules such as methanol, formic acid and ethylene, butanol and many others.<\/p>\n

Captured CO2<\/sub>\u00a0can also be bound in mineral-rich industrial wastes (like ashes, slags, and construction wastes) to create solid materials (e.g. carbonates, bricks, and building materials). This process, known as mineralisation, is an industrially accelerated form of natural carbonation that already occurs in nature, though at a slow pace. Mineralising carbon does not only allow us to store carbon dioxide in products for hundreds of years, but it also allows us to create products that can substitute carbon-intensive products (e.g. cement).<\/p>\n

This broad range of carbon capture and utilisation technology pathways are not emerging technologies anymore, as some of them are already at TRL 9 (commercialisation level), while others are in this wide spectrum range of TRLs starting from one to nine, so still in labs or prototype or pilot phase.<\/p>\n

Challenges in commercialising CCU technologies<\/h3>\n

However, the route towards the scalability of CCU technologies is also faced with several challenges. First is the business case. As CCU solutions are often energy-intensive and require a significant initial investment for their implementation, they require significant investment in the CapEx and OpEx phases.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there might be future unpredictable competition between fossil, biogenic and atmospheric CO2<\/sub>\u00a0to provide chemical feedstocks, material and fuel needs, and that shows the importance of assessing the future demand trends and potential penetration of these products via accurate marketing investigations. Third, as CCU has been envisioned as a \u2018circular solution\u2019, conflicting expectations and misconceptions may arise when it is mixed up with carbon capture and storage solutions (CCS), especially at the political level, given the different needs and challenges of these two different sectors. Fourth, when it comes to risk perception and public acceptance, it is now clear that the general public is not very well aware of CCU, and this may lead to relevant difficulties in assessing the acceptance in various areas of Europe. Last but not least, there are difficulties associated with assessing the impact of CCU technologies on the environment and the economy.<\/p>\n

Tackling climate change with CCU<\/h3>\n

In 2022, the role of carbon capture and utilisation technology as a solution to mitigating climate change<\/a> was recognised by the United Nations\u2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).<\/p>\n

In its sixth assessment report titled \u2018Mitigation of Climate Change\u2019, the UN panel not only identifies CCU technology as a solution to decrease net CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions but also stresses the importance of its critical role to end our reliance on fossil carbon by using CO2<\/sub>\u00a0as an alternative feedstock for the production of renewable fuels and chemicals.<\/p>\n

In this context, the three major contributions of CCU technologies to mitigating climate change are:<\/p>\n