Both the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency (IEA) show that CCS will be necessary to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in line with the climate targets in the Paris agreement at the lowest possible cost.
Thank you to Wikborg Rein for being a Gold sponsor of SNIC 2023 – Innovate to Zero. Their Managing Director at Wikborg Rein Singapore, Ina Lutchmiah, will be moderating the discussion on Carbon Capture and Storage solutions. Other contributors to this discussion include Dr. Sanjay Kuttan, CTO at the Global Center for Maritime Decarbonisation, and Johanne Koll-Hansen Bø, Vice President of Altera Infrastructure and Head of Stella Maris. Thanks also to Special Adviser Tonje Hagen Geiran at WR, who has written the following article as an introduction to CCS.
Necessary for net zero: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
A key theme on the SNIC 2023 conference this year is carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a topic related to the rapid development of climate technology.
Both the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency (IEA) show that CCS will be necessary to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in line with the climate targets in the Paris agreement at the lowest possible cost.
What is actually carbon capture and storage? The first stage in a CCS process is the capture of CO2 from gases emitted during the burning of fossil fuels or biomass, or from industrial processes such as the production of steel, cement or chemicals. There are currently several different technologies for CO2 capture, all in constant development.
Once captured, the CO2 will need to be transported by pipeline or ship to a suitable storage site. Transportation of CO2 by ships has been carried out for a long time already, e.g. as part of the daily business in the food grade CO2 market.
Finally, the CO2 needs to be stored. Currently, the most cost-effective technique for safely storing large volumes of CO2 is to recycle the carbon back into the earth’s sedimentary basins, for instance in old fossil fuel reservoirs on the continental shelf.
In this session we will explore and go deeper into the role of CCS for the shipping industry – taking into account that CCS already takes place in many countries in the world. Numerous commercial facilities are in operation today applying CCS technologies to industrial processes, fuel transformation and power generation. Many more are in pipeline.
What we know is that there is a huge potential for CCS and climate technology development in Asia, where many emitter companies are also concentrated. However, there is a need for further unlocking the potential. Currently, some of the obstacles evolves around how to get access to domestic underground storage reservoirs, and the achievement of a higher level of regulatory maturity. Nevertheless, Asia has the world’s largest shipbuilding capacity with companies that have deep track records, proprietary technologies and economies of scale. These capabilities are significant for CCS, which require rapid technology maturation and scale economies.
Singapore and Norway will have mutual interests in further cooperating in different aspects associated with CCS.
Norway has for a long time invested heavily in carbon capture and storage and has today a strong technical CCS community, as expertise has been developed over the past 25 years due to the planning of several CCS projects. Furthermore, the Norwegian continental shelf is large with abundant possibilities for CO2 storage in geological formations beneath the seabed. For many years, various governments have supported technology development, testing and pilot projects, and emphasised CCS as an important climate mitigation tool in international climate negotiations.
Currently, the full scale CCS flagship project Longship is under development. This project will demonstrate the capture of CO2 from industrial sources, as well as transport and safe storage of CO2. Initially, there is a storage capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year at the storage site, while the pipe from the onshore facility to the reservoir is dimensioned for 5 million tonnes. The project will also contribute to innovation by learning and greater efficiency, resulting in lower costs for subsequent projects – for instance in Asia.
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