The first projects in the nascent carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector should not be viewed as failures but learning opportunities from which the industry can push on quickly to achieve effective build-out and scale, according to Blair McMaster, Senior Consultant Carbon Capture at DNV, the global assurance and risk management provider.
Speaking on gasworld’s ‘CO2: Securing supplies and exploring new pathways’ webinar, McMaster said global installed CCS capacity stands in the region of 50 million tonnes per year today – maybe approaching 60 million tonnes with new recent plant start-ups.
“Every forecast says we will need huge amounts of CO2 removal to reach Net Zero by 2050. And if we are to have huge amounts in 2040 and 2045 we will need to start deploying and reducing costs now,” he said. “There is [also] a real opportunity for utilisation in the next five to 10 years.”
North America is the most mature market, with majority of projects being pipeline-oriented, while many of the Asia capture projects have not clarified the plan for the collected CO2.
“In Europe, we see the widest range of transport methods, and multi-step transport networks, as well as mature hubs – such as Northern Lights, which has just announced a massive capacity expansion. Around 50% of projects will use pipelines, and half will use shipping, with some overlaps. Denmark has a real focus on capturing biogenic CO2 and [is] looking to leverage [its] existing biomethane plants.”
In its three-year Skylark project analysing CO2 pipeline safety, together with the UK Health and Safety Executive’s HSE Science Division, DNV is studying large-scale CO2 pipeline releases in complex terrain. This will be used to improve predictive models and environmental and safety impact assessments, as well as emergency response strategies.
“[The project] remains open to new partners. We aim to start experiments later this year,” he said.
Bruce Woerner of Woerner CO2 Consulting said much would depend on the policy direction from the new US government.
“Companies like ExxonMobil acquired Denbury thinking that pipeline from Mississippi to Houston would capture millions of tonnes of CO2, so a lot hinges on if [the 45Q tax credit] remains in existence,” he said.
He said he was confident the cost of CO2 production “is going to go up,” which will impact the dynamics of the market.
“Obviously the carbonation industry has to have it, and they’re perfectly willing to pay a lot more for CO2, which is a small part of their overall cost,” he said.
“We saw in South America a two-tier system where beverage suppliers were paying a premium and the food market couldn’t [match it], so that was priced at a lower price.”
But there could be other policy-meets-pricing clashes ahead.
“California, being very green, could put more pressure on refineries not to sell CO2 to industrial gas companies so that could be very devastating from a sourcing and supply issue for the whole [US] West Coast.” He said biogas or RNG would help but it was a relatively small impact confined today to just a few geographies.
