A Need for Carbon Capture & NETs: A Growing Sector for the Valve Industry

Climate change mitigation strategies are at the forefront of discussions regarding how the global population and various governments can achieve the ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction commit­ments. These are needed to achieve the Paris Accord’s 2015 stated goal of limiting global warming to below 2°C, but with a target of 1.5°C, above preindustrial levels.¹ An ambitious endeavor of such magnitude raises the question, how is such a goal ac­complished? The answer to this question is multifaceted and requires significant in­novation and cutting-edge research & de­velopment across many industries.

By Foster Voelker II – Director of Engineering, Williams Valve

Mitigation Goals

According to the United Nations, “more than 70 countries, including the biggest polluters – China, the United States, and the European Union – have set a net-zero target, covering roughly 76% of global emissions. Over 1,200 companies have put in place science-based targets in line with net zero, and more than 1,000 cities, over 1,000 educational institutions, and over 400 financial institutions have joined the Race to Zero, pledging to take rigorous, immediate action to halve global emis­sions by 2030.”²

The fossil fuel and energy sectors are the obvious focus. Based on data from the U.S Energy Information Adminis­tration, “Fossil fuel combustion (burn­ing) for energy accounted for 73% of total U.S. GHG emissions and 92% of total U.S. anthropogenic carbon diox­ide (CO₂) emissions. CO₂ emissions from other anthropogenic sources and activities were about 6% of total GHG emissions and 8% of total CO₂ emissions.”³

As can be seen with the pending leg­islation banning the sale of gas-pow­ered vehicles by 2030 in several US States, or the significant investments in renewable production sources, de­creasing fossil fuel dependency is the priority. However, even if successful, reducing energy and fossil fuel con­sumption is likely not adequate to re­duce CO₂ emissions to a level required to achieve the goals as outlined by the Paris Accords and United Nations. According to The Intergovernmen­tal Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report on carbon capture and storage, “no single technology option will provide all of the emission reduc­tions needed to achieve stabilization, but a portfolio of mitigation measures will be needed.”⁴

Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS)

To achieve these targets, the imple­mentation of carbon capture and stor­age as well as negative emissions tech­nologies (NETs) are inevitable. Carbon capture, as the name implies, is the process of capturing carbon dioxide emissions before entering the atmo­sphere for safe storage. The IPCC de­fines carbon capture and storage as “a process consisting of the separation of CO₂ from industrial and energy-related sources, transport to a storage loca­tion, and long-term isolation from the atmosphere.”⁴ Carbon capture technol­ogy focuses on large point sources of CO₂ emissions from industries such as power, refining, steel manufacturing, petrochemical, etc.

The Global CCS Institute estimates that facilities currently in operation or under construction have the capacity to capture more than 40 million met­ric tons of CO₂ per year.5 According to the 2022 report, “As of September 2022, there are 196 (including two sus­pended) projects in the CCS facilities pipeline. This is an impressive growth of 44 % in the number of CCS facilities since the Global Status of CCS 2021 report and continues the upward mo­mentum in CCS projects in develop­ment since 2017.

By facility count growth, the U.S. con­tinues to lead the way globally, with 34 new projects since 2021. Other lead­ing countries in the past year include Canada (19 new projects), the UK (13), Norway (8), Australia, the Netherlands, and Iceland (6 each).”⁶ The concept of directly capturing CO₂, however, was not developed for environmental con­cerns. Several commercial CO₂ capture facilities were constructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s as possible eco­nomic sources of CO₂, but these ambi­tions were short-lived as the mid-1980s drop in oil prices made recovered CO₂ too expensive.⁷ In recent years, en­vironmental regulations have driven adoption and the scope of industries implementing CCS technologies has increased significantly since the 1970s. The global 2022 status of operational and pending CCS facilities are outlined in Figures 1 and 2^.6

The main challenge to the adoption of CCS technologies is the cost of implementation. The equipment and additional energy needed for the capture and compression phases of the process are associated with high costs and increased water consump­tion. This could be an additional chal­lenge for facilities located in areas ex­periencing water scarcity or drought. Transportation costs are also high as it requires significant energy to maintain the chilled compressed CO₂ throughout transportation to the storage facility. Transportation itself will require the construction of specialized piping sys­tems⁸ directed to an available geologi­cal storage facility. The United States has attempted to offset these chal­lenges by offering national tax credits for CCS via Section 45Q of the Internal Revenue Code.⁹ Many states have fol­lowed suit, offering state-level credits. Several other governments have simi­lar legislation to incentivize the adop­tion of CCS technologies. As a result, the implementation of CCS projects on the horizon is ever-growing and the subsequent market opportunities for valve manufacturers are quite large.

Negative Emission Technology (NETs)

There is a growing consensus that mitigation technologies may not be adequate to achieve the Paris Agree­ment’s targets making negative emis­sion technologies (NETs) essential. NETs remove CO₂ directly from the atmosphere. A paper published in February 2022 in the Energy & Envi­ronment Science Journal regarding Direct Air Capture makes the follow­ing assessment, “CCS technologies are proposed to reduce the rate of release CO₂ from large, stationary sources by capturing a large portion of CO₂ from gas mixtures destined for the atmosphere, with subsequent storage of CO₂ in geological sites. Thus, they may find application in sectors where CO₂ emissions cannot be avoided as they are inherent to the process, e.g., steel and cement production, and the production of various chemicals, as well as from any remaining fossil-fuel power generation. Carbon dioxide re­moval (CDR) technologies seek to go further, removing CO₂ already present in the air. If a specific CDR technology results in net-negative CO₂ emissions, e.g., it is powered by renewable en­ergy, and the captured CO₂ is stored, then it may be called a NET. Among various NETs, two of them stand out as variations of CCS: bioenergy with car­bon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS).”¹⁰ Several NETs that directly remove carbon dioxide from the atmo­sphere have been suggested. These technologies range in scope from afforestation/reforestation (AR) and soil carbon sequestration (SCS) to direct air capture. A breakdown of NETs is outlined in Figure 3.¹¹

Final Thoughts

Currently, the IPCC reports have only addressed BECCS and AR, establishing a need for NETs while raising concerns over the availability, scale, or other potential negative consequences of NETs.¹⁰ It is likely that future IPCC re­ports will incorporate additional NETs and make the case that NETs are need­ed as complementary technologies to standard mitigation techniques and are paramount in achieving the CO₂ reduc­tions necessary to reach global com­mitments. As a result, it is highly prob­able legislative initiatives will drive innovation and development in NETs yielding additional market opportuni­ties for equipment manufacturers in these developing technologies.

References:

1. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
2. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition
3. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/energy-and-the-environment/where-greenhouse-gases-come-from.php
4. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ srccs_wholereport-1.pdf
5. https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/wp-content/ uploads/2021/11/Global-Status-of-CCS-2021-Global- CCS-Institute-1121.pdf
6. https://status22.globalccsinstitute.com/2022-status-report/global-status-of-ccs/
7. http://web.mit.edu/energylab/www/pubs/knoxville.pdf
8. https://www.mdpi.com/1996- 1073/11/9/2184?type=check_update&version=1
9. https://betterenergy.org/blog/primer-section-45q-tax-credit-for-carbon-capture-projects/
10. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/EE/ D1EE03523A#cit24
11. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ aabf9b