Momentum for a post-pandemic ‘green recovery’ continues, as the UK government and the European Commission set out steps to accelerate their recoveries, while supporting the paths to net zero by 2050. Here we round-up just some of the initiatives announced in recent weeks to achieve these goals.
Human hands holding earth globe and tree
Plans for preservation of biodiversity
Speaking on the 3rd June 2020, at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Economic and Environmental Committee Meeting, the UK’s Second Secretary from the UK Delegation, Justin Addison, said; ‘As we recover, we have an opportunity to protect and restore nature, reducing our exposure to deadly viruses and climate impact.’
Highlighting the UK’s global outlook on addressing climate change, Addison added, ‘The UK will soon announce a £64 million package to support Colombia to tackle deforestation and build a cleaner and more resilient economy in areas affected by Covid-19 and conflict.’
As well as the UK’s efforts to preserve biodiversity, the European Commission will be looking to protect and restore biodiversity and natural ecosystems. Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s Executive Vice President added that, ‘It can boost our resilience and prevent the emergence and spread of future virus outbreaks. We have now seen that this relationship between us and the natural environment is key to our health.’
Earth held in human hands
Enabling low-carbon solutions and boosting clean growth
EU:
In early June, a letter was sent to decision-makers across the European Union from more than 100 investors, urging the EU to ensure a green recovery from the covid-19 pandemic is delivered.
Investors are keen to ensure the government builds on The European Green deal to deliver a long term commitment that will accelerate the economy into one that is more green and carbon resilient post coronavirus.
The European Green deal, set out before the pandemic, details some of their targets including, a 50-55% emissions reduction by 2030; a climate law to reach net-zero emissions by 2050; a transition fund worth €100bn and a series of new sector policies to ensure all industries are able to decarbonise.
A shoot of a plant and planet Earth
UK:
To boost clean growth, the UK Government has recently launched a £40 million Clean Growth Fund that will ‘supercharge green start-ups’.
This fund will enable UK clean growth start-ups to scale up low-carbon solutions and drive a green economic recovery.
Potential examples of projects the fund could support include areas in power and energy, buildings, transport and waste.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: ‘This pioneering new fund will enable innovative low-carbon solutions to be scaled up at speed, helping to drive a green and resilient economic recovery.’
In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, an international group of researchers are urging countries to reconsider their strategy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. While countries signed up to the Paris Agreement have individual quotas to meet in terms of emissions reduction, they argue this cannot be achieved without global cooperation to ensure enough CO2 is removed in a fair and equitable way.
Harmful emissions
The team of international researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Girona, ETH Zürich and the University of Cambridge, have stated that countries with greater capacity to remove CO2 should be more proactive in helping those that cannot meet their quotas.
Co-author Dr Niall Mac Dowell, from the Centre for Environmental Policy and the Centre for Process Systems Engineering at Imperial, said, ‘It is imperative that nations have these conversations now, to determine how quotas could be allocated fairly and how countries could meet those quotas via cross-border cooperation.’
The team’s modelling and research has shown that while the removal quotas vary significantly, only a handful of countries will have the capacity to meet them using their own resources.
Reforestation
A few ways to achieve carbon dioxide removal:
(1) Reforestation
(2) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
(3) CCS coupled to bioenergy – growing crops to burn for fuel. The crops remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and the CCS captures any CO2 from the power station before its release.
However, deploying these removal strategies will vary depending on the capabilities of different countries. The team have therefore suggested a system of trading quotas. For example, due to the favourable geological formations in the UK’s North Sea, the UK has space for CCS, and therefore, they could sell some of its capacity to other countries.
Global cooperation
Co-lead author Dr Carlos Pozo from the University of Girona, concluded; ‘By 2050, the world needs to be carbon neutral - taking out of the atmosphere as much CO2 as it puts in. To this end, a CO2 removal industry needs to be rapidly scaled up, and that begins now, with countries looking at their responsibilities and their capacity to meet any quotas.’
This latest SCI Energy Group blog introduces the possible avenues of carbon dioxide utilisation, which entails using carbon dioxide to produce economically valuable products through industrial processes. Broadly, utilisation can be categorised into three applications: chemical use, biological use and direct use. For which, examples of each will be highlighted throughout.
Before proceeding to introduce these, we can first consider utilisation in relation to limiting climate change. As has been discussed in previous blogs, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is crucial. Therefore, for carbon dioxide utilisation technologies to have a beneficial impact on climate change, several important factors must be considered and addressed.
1)Energy Source: Often these processes are energy intensive. Therefore, this energy must come from renewable resources or technologies.
2)Scale: Utilisation technologies must exhibit large scaling potential to match the limited timeframe for climate action.
3)Permanence: Technologies which provide permanent removal or displacement of CO2 emissions will be most impactful¹.
Figure 1: CO2 sign
Chemical Uses
Carbon dioxide, alongside other reactants, can be chemically converted into useful products. Examples of which include urea, methanol, and plastics and polymers. One of the primary uses of urea includes agricultural fertilisers which are pivotal to crop nutrition. Most commonly, methanol is utilised as a chemical feedstock in industrial processes.
Figure 2: Fertilizing soil
One of the key challenges faced with this application of utilisation is the low reactivity of CO2 in its standard conditions. Therefore, to successfully convert it into products of economic value, catalysts are required to significantly lower the molecules activation energy and overall energy consumption of the process. With that being said, it is anticipated that, in future, the chemical conversion of CO2 will have an important role in maintaining a secure supply of fuel and chemical feedstocks such as methanol and methane².
Biological Uses
Carbon dioxide is fundamental to plant growth as it provides a source of required organic compounds. For this reason, it can be utilised in greenhouses to promote carbonic fertilisation. By injecting increased levels of CO2 into the air supplied to greenhouses, the yield of plant growth has been seen to increase. Furthermore, CO2 from the flue gas streams of chemical processes has been recognised, in some studies, to be of a quality suitable for direct injection³.
These principles are applicable to encouraging the growth of microorganisms too. One example being microalgae which boasts several advantageous properties. Microalgae has been recognised for its ability to grow in diverse environments as well as its ability to be cultured in numerous types of bioreactors. Furthermore, its production rate is considerably high meaning a greater demand for CO2 is exhibited than that from normal plants. Micro-algal biomass can be utilised across a range of industries to form a multitude of products. These include bio-oils, fuels, fertilisers, food products, plant feeds and high value chemicals. However, at present, the efficiency of CO2 fixation, in this application, can be as low as 20-50%.
Figure 4: Illustration of microalgae under the microscope
Direct Uses
It is important to note that, at present, there are many mature processes which utilise CO2 directly. Examples of which are shown in the table below.
Summary
Many carbon dioxide utilisation technologies exist, across a broad range of industrial applications. For which, some are well-established, and others are more novel. For such technologies to have a positive impact on climate action, several factors need to be addressed such as their energy source, scaling potential and permanence of removal/ displacement of CO2.
The chemistry of carbon dioxide and its role in decarbonisation is a key topic of interest for SCI Energy Group. In the near future, we will be running a webinar concerned with this. Further details of this will be posted on the SCI website in due course.
Reace Edwards is a member of SCI’s Energy group and a PhD Chemical Engineering student at the University of Chester. Read more about her involvement with SCI here or watch her recent TEDx Talk here.
The Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) is funded by UK government through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. One aim is to enable the deployment of low-carbon technology, at scale, by the mid-2020’s [1]. This challenge supports the Industrial Clusters Mission which seeks to establish one net-zero industrial cluster by 2040 and at-least one low-carbon cluster by 2030 [2]. This latest SCI Energy Group blog provides an overview of Phase 1 winners from this challenge and briefly highlights several on-going initiatives across some of the UK’s industrial clusters.
Phase 1 Winners
In April 2020, the winners for the first phase of two IDC competitions were announced. These were the ‘Deployment Competition’ and the ‘Roadmap Competition’; see Figure 1 [3].
Figure1 - Winners of Phase 1 Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Competitions. For further information, click here
Teesside
Net-Zero Teesside is a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project. One aim is to decarbonise numerous carbon-intensive businesses by as early as 2030. Every year, up to 6 million tonnes of CO2emissions are expected to be captured. Thiswill be stored in the southern North Sea which has more than 1,000Mt of storage capacity. The project could create 5,500 jobs during construction and could provide up to £450m in annual gross benefit for the Teesside region during the construction phase [4].
For further information on this project, click here.
Figure2 – Industrial Skyscape of Teesside Chemical Plants
The Humber
In 2019, Drax Group, Equinor and National Grid signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which committed them to work together to explore the opportunities for a zero-carbon cluster in the Humber. As part of this initiative, carbon capture technology is under development at the Drax Power Station’s bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot. This could be scaled up to create the world’s first carbon negative power-station. This initiative also envisages a hydrogen demonstrator project, at the Drax site, which could be running by the mid-2020s. An outline of the project timeline is shown in Figure 3 [5].
For further information on this project, click here.
Figure3 - Overview of Timeline for Net-Zero Humber Project
North West
The HyNet project envisions hydrogen production and CCS technologies. In this project, CO2will be captured from a hydrogen production plant as well as additional industrial emitters in the region. This will be transported, via pipeline, to the Liverpool Bay gas fields for long-term storage [6]. In the short term, a hydrogen production plant has been proposed to be built on Essar’s Stanlow refinery. The Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) is expected to be completed by March 2021 and the plant could be operational by mid-2024. The CCS infrastructure is expected to follow a similar timeframe [7].
For further information on the status of this project, click here.
Scotland
Project Acorn has successfully obtained the first UK CO2appraisal and storage licence from the Oil and Gas Authority. Like others, this project enlists CCS and hydrogen production. A repurposed pipeline will be utilised to transport industrial CO2emissions from the Grangemouth industrial cluster to St. Fergus for offshore storage, at rates of 2 million tonnes per year. Furthermore, the hydrogen production plant, to be located at St. Fergus, is expected to blend up to 2% volume hydrogen into the National Transmission System [8]. A final investment decision (FID) for this project is expected in 2021. It has the potential to be operating by 2024 [9].
For further information on this project, click here.
Figure4 - Emissions from Petrochemical Plant at Grangemouth
SCI Energy Group October Conference
The chemistry of carbon dioxide and its role in decarbonisation is a key topic of interest for SCI Energy Group. In October, we will be running a conference concerned with this topic. Further details can be found here.
Reace Edwards is a member of SCI’s Energy group and a PhD Chemical Engineering student at the University of Chester. Read more about her involvement with SCI here or watch her TEDx Talk here.
Good morning to everyone who is going to troll an oil company today
The goal of bullying Big Oil companies over their climate tweets isn’t just to educate people about corporate hypocrisy. It’s to unite activists around the goal of taking away their social license to operate.
Oil majors have admitted to investors that their business would be in deep trouble without broad public support. They’ve also admitted the biggest threat to maintaining social license is public anger over climate change.
Oil companies could remedy this threat by winding down their fossil fuel operations, and investing heavily in renewable energy. But for the most part, they’ve chosen to combat public anger over climate change by investing in strategic communication.This consistent choice of empty climate words over meaningful climate action is why several Shell executives quit the company this week—and it’s why Heglar says social media call-outs are increasingly powerful.
Yup. Mining Bitcoin sure is bad for the planet with an estimated 37 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
To put into perspective how much CO2 that is, we’d need to let grow 155 million mature trees for 10 years to suck out the carbon dioxide emissions caused by Bitcoin mining alone for only one year.
Half of all the crypto mining in the world is done in southwest China where power is provided through the burning of coal. The rest aren’t innocent either as most of the world still gets most of its energy from non-renewable sources that emit powerful greenhouse gases.
The fact that crypto mining is so energy intensive combined with the sources of this energy are what makes it a terrible choice for our planet. This could be prevented if renewables were used for meeting the energy demands.
Studio Cardenas design energy efficient bamboo house
Hot on the heels of new legislation in China surrounding sustainable growth, Studio Cardenas have created a bamboo house that utilises the latest green technologies to maximise energy efficiency.
It is built from sustainable local materials, gives off very few carbon emissions and is even cooled through a clever water system that utilises the area’s natural underground water deposits.
Particularly commendable is how the house conforms to ancient traditions of Feng Shui whist simultaneously embracing modern construction techniques. The structure is modular and industrial; allowing for simple, efficient assembly. My favourite feature is definitely the bespoke aluminium joints the firm have designed to house the bamboo. Not only are these strong and aesthetically pleasing, but they allow for the simple replacement of the bamboo poles if needed. So no need to worry about taking half the house apart if there’s a problem.
I’d just like to see some more interior shots. The firm’s visuals will simply have to do for now.
Just read an article in “Science News”, Food Choices by Betsy Ladyzhets Page 24 and it discusses greenhouse gas emissions and the “future of food”. The United States is one of the top emitting economies due in part to meat consumption and food waste! MORE THAN 1/3 of all food produced NEVER actually gets eaten!!! OMG! ❤️
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has finished its tally of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions for 2010, which is the most recent year studied. The report shows the state’s emissions held steady since 2007, in spite of population growth.
