07. Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage

Hyergiant “suggests that algae is 400 times as effective at capturing carbon than forests are.”

This story has been taken from the multimedia report Top 10 Frontier Technologies for Climate Action. Find it here.

The scientific consensus is that 1.5 degrees Celsius over the preindustrial baseline is a ‘safe’ level of warming.

But in order to hold the rise in global average temperature at that level, humanity must stabilise the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to around 350 parts per million. In 2017, we breached the 410 parts per million threshold. Put simply, there is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere — which means that reducing emissions is not enough. To keep climate change to a safe level, we also need to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, to mitigate still-rising global carbon emissions — with more on the way from the use of existing fossil fuel infrastructure.

Burying the CO2, or storing it underground, has been the most popular method so far — but there is an issue. Carbon has no immediate economic benefits, so there is little incentive for companies to get better at capturing it. Could other solutions help — more permanent storage solutions such as mineralising CO2? Perhaps turning it into new chemical products? Or reusing it as fuel in a way that does not cause environmental damage?

Consistent with other technologies we discuss here, much of the technology for capturing and storing CO2 has been created in the developed world, and needs to be transferred to countries still in development where it can make a potentially bigger impact in terms of population reached. This poses challenges. Carbon markets are largely a function of government credit schemes, so regions without such measures struggle to fund carbon capture and storage work. But if that initial investment can be found, there is potential for carbon capture to create jobs, bringing economic as well as environmental benefits.

Reforestation Optimisation

We have all seen the shocking images of the Amazon burning. This reflects a global trend: every year, two billion hectares of land is degraded globally, the result of fires and intense deforestation for industry. Although reforestation efforts are underway in some parts of the world to try and stem the damage and replace what has been lost, these efforts are impeded by imperfect data. Replanting efforts are less effective if we don’t know exactly where and what to plant.

Technology, such as drones that monitor forests, could help monitor and accelerate efforts to reforest large areas. Specialised hardware and software could also help establish forest carbon offsets, which can create extra income for small scale farmers once they’ve been trained and equipped with the right data. Most of this technology is already commercially available, but the business models are still evolving.

Biological Carbon Capture

At the moment, carbon capture technology is energy-intensive and expensive. It requires bulky, expensive infrastructure, not to mention vast amounts of land. But there could be simpler solutions. What if the algae that already proliferates in our oceans and rivers could help?

Researchers are exploring the possibility that algae, which is photosynthetic, could be used to replace this complicated and pricey infrastructure. Some research by a company called Hypergiant which leverages Artificial Intelligence across verticals like space, retail and health, even suggests that algae is 400 times as effective at capturing carbon than forests are. This could be a way for nations in development to extract CO2. At the moment though, the only proven benefit to building algae farms is extracting CO2. Research is ongoing to look for other uses for spent algae. Other methods of using natural organisms for carbon capture — including ocean phytoplankton — are also being researched.

One of Hypergiant’s products is the Eos Bioreactor, which uses dehydrated algae disks to sequester carbon more rapidly and efficiently than trees, using data gleaned from machine intelligence.

CO2 Mineralisation

It is all very well to capture CO2 from the atmosphere — but then what do you do with it? If this captured CO2 is re-used either as a fuel or for other chemical purposes, it might simply result in the same CO2 being re-emitted into the environment. One possible alternative, which is currently at the early stages of commercialisation, is binding CO2 to other minerals. This could make the captured CO2 into a useful solid object, storing it permanently while also making use of it. Through processes like carbonation or calcium carbonate curing, captured CO2 could be used in essential construction materials such as concrete. At the moment, this process is inefficient and costly, and not much value is added to the finished products, so more research and development is needed to make it viable.

CO2 to Chemicals/Fuels

‘Feedstock’ is the raw material that supplies or fuels a machine or industrial process. One suggestion for dealing with vast tranches of captured CO2 is to use a catalyst to turn it into something different altogether. If this works, the CO2 could eventually be processed into different chemicals and fuels, some of which could be worth a lot of money. Creating high-value, expensive products from captured CO2 could bring much needed money into carbon trading markets. These markets usually function because of government incentives, and in countries in development where those government incentives don’t exist, the introduction of genuinely valuable fuels and chemicals could be a game changer. The infrastructure is complicated, and development cycles are long, but ways of making some chemicals and fuels have already been established in the developed world and now need to be transferred.

Carbon Engineering is one company that has fully demonstrated their Direct Air Capture technology, which extracts CO2 from atmospheric air through a series of chemical reactions faster than plants and trees, in a compressed form that can be reused. They are now looking at commercialising the technology.

Want to explore the other nine Frontier Technologies for Climate Action? Click here.

Is there a technology here that captures your attention? Put your thoughts in the comments section below or get in touch at ftlenquiries@imcworldwide.com