The magazine for energy professionals
October 2021 – open access articles The following articles are taken from Energy World magazine’s October 2021 edition for promotional purposes. For full access to the magazine, become a member of the Energy Institute by visiting www.energyinst.org/join
Heat and cooling
INNOVATION
US warms to thermal cooling projects I n recognition of the pressing need to improve energy efficiency performance in residential and commercial buildings, the DOE’s Building Technologies Office recently awarded a total of $83mn in funding to 44 projects under the auspices of its Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) programme. Several of the projects focus on the development of innovative thermal cooling and sustainable air conditioning technologies. One notable initiative is a project led by Delaware-based Baryon Inc. The firm is developing a novel air conditioning system based on a new method of evaporative cooling combined with dehumidification through an innovative ionic membrane. As Demis Pandelidis, Founding Director at Baryon Inc, and inventor of the system, explains, the new technology utilises some of the principles of evaporative cooling, but: ‘works in a completely different airflow regime which, combined with membrane dehumidification, allows it to achieve high effectiveness in humid climates.’ Crucially, Pandelidis points out that the system also enables the same ‘comfort of use’ as traditional systems – including the same level of temperature control and thermal comfort, regardless of outdoor conditions. ‘The proposed unit achieves a coefficient of performance (COP) on the level of 12.5 in humid climatic conditions, which allows it to save 50–80% more energy in comparison to existing devices. It also has a simple plug-and-play structure that can be easily installed in any building and allows for independent temperature and humidity control,’ he says. ‘The additional benefit is that our unit produces water for its operation, meaning there is no external water consumption. This is a critical factor in many of the world’s regions and we are happy that we can meet this goal,’ he adds.
20 Energy World | October 2021
The US Department of Energy is funding a range of projects to develop innovative energy efficiency solutions for residential and commercial buildings – several of which focus on thermal cooling. Andrew Williams takes a look.
Visualisation of Bayron’s air conditioning system based on evaporative cooling and dehumidification Photo: Bayron
Functional prototype The project aims to create the first energy saving solution for air conditioning systems in humid climates. Although many novel renewable energy-based devices have been implemented for heating purposes over the last two decades – including heat recovery units, heat pumps and solar PV systems – Pandelidis points out that no devices based on renewable energy have been widely applied in the cooling sector. Although direct and indirect evaporative air-cooling technologies enable users to save energy in specific applications in dry climates, Pandelidis notes that their effectiveness drops significantly in moderate and humid climates – and they are not able to maintain comfortable conditions inside buildings in humid climates. ‘Most of the global human population lives in humid climates – with East and Southeast Asia, most states of USA, excluding central states like Nevada or Arizona, southern Europe and Africa all characterised by humid
conditions in summer. For this reason, evaporative cooling can’t be widely applied and is only used in selected dry regions, like central parts of the US, as well as Australia and the Middle East,’ he says. ‘In addition, they consume high amounts of water, which is problematic in many regions with limited water supply – for example, in California. They also have fixed, large dimensions and lack temperature control capabilities because they are passive and their effectiveness depends on the ambient air conditions.’ In an effort to address these shortcomings, Pandelidis reveals that the goal of the Baryon project is to overcome all of the disadvantages of traditional evaporative cooling and take cooling technology to a completely new level. Building on earlier work to prove the principles of the technology at the laboratory and numerical level, the project will develop and install a fully functional prototype – verified by both the Argonne and Oak Ridge National Labs – that will serve as a base for mass production. According to Pandelidis, a key
US cooling market The US cooling market is one of the biggest on the planet – second only to the Chinese market – and demand for air conditioning in the country is expected to triple before 2050, according to Pandelidis. ‘Increasing demand for cooling is combined with the increasing cost of operation of air conditioning equipment because of the constantly rising price of electricity. Due to this fact, the need for energy saving solutions will continue to grow,’ he says. In concrete terms, Bacellar reveals that the US HVAC market is currently worth approximately $15bn a year – with commercial HVAC accounting for nearly 30% of the market. It is expected to grow by 6% by the end of the decade, while energy use for space cooling worldwide may increase three-fold by 2050. ‘Growing electrification – for example with electric vehicles and heat pumps for space and water heating – in combination with growing population and wealth around the world, means we will need to power all that more efficiently,’ he says. ‘Cooling and heating are responsible for nearly 7% of greenhouse gas emissions, but with the warming climate it may take a larger portion in the future,’ Bacellar adds. ‘Energy efficiency is the first, most important step towards sustainability, followed by technologies that enable a reliable use of renewable energy, such as storage. Heat pumps and thermal batteries are likely key players in the years to come in the HVAC world.’
Heat and cooling
benefit of the system is that it can be applied to any object that requires air conditioning in residential, commercial and industrial settings. Another major advantage of the proposed system is that it uses more than two times less energy. ‘The first target market for the system will be one-story commercial buildings – for example big-box, supercentre and warehouse club stores – due to the fact that the implementation process for such objects is relatively easy. Later we plan to approach all commercial and residential market sectors,’ adds Pandelidis. Dual mode technology Elsewhere, a project led by researchers at the University of Maryland will develop and validate an integrated 5–10 tonne heat pump and thermal energy storage system that can operate in both cooling and heating modes. The technology is said to achieve more than 50% demand reduction for four hours and more than 20% total energy efficiency improvement for all modes at a cost of less than or equal to $15/kWh. As Daniel Bacellar, Assistant Research Professor in the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (CEEE) at the University of
The US cooling market is one of the biggest on the planet – second only to the Chinese market – and demand for air conditioning in the country is expected to triple before 2050
Maryland, explains, the proposed technology consists of a dualpurpose (heating and cooling) thermal battery with room temperature storage integrated with a heat pump. The battery serves as a heat reservoir that absorbs heat when operating as a condenser in cooling mode, or rejects heat when operating as an evaporator in heating mode. The system may also be configured as a single heat pump with one compressor, preferably two-stage, or two compressors, or two separate heat pumps with dedicated compressors. ‘Electricity consumption from commercial and residential buildings in the US dedicated to powering HVAC&R equipment is, respectively, more than 40% and 70% of the total consumption. Energy storage is a key for more efficient energy management; more specifically, for HVAC&R, thermal storage has potential for higher energy conversion, transfer efficiencies and possible lower costs than conventional electrochemical batteries,’ says Bacellar. Distributed demand For Bacellar, the key innovation of the technology is the fact it possesses a single reservoir
through which heat is rejected or absorbed that is always at the same temperature. This means that system performance will be independent from outdoor conditions, unlike existing standalone heat pumps. When temperatures are too high or too low, the heat pump doesn’t need to work as hard when operating with the thermal battery, thus imposing less strain on the grid and resulting in more distributed demand throughout the day. ‘More commonly, thermal storage is used to store the cooling or heating load directly, requiring a separate storage for each mode; in this technology a single storage can deliver both,’ says Bacellar. Looking ahead, Bacellar reveals that the project team – which also includes HVAC company Rheem, as well as Heat Transfer Technologies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Electric Power Research Institute – will together develop a full commercialisation plan. ‘The project will focus on commercial buildings where we see an easier path to implementation. However, in principle, any air source heat pump could benefit from this technology,’ he adds. l
Carbon capture and storage
GLOBAL PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
The EU and US take different approaches to CCS While European developers favour collaborative carbon capture ‘hubs’, the US is developing the technology at individual sites. What could this mean for the global growth of CCS? Laura Syrett investigates.
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uropean and US interest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is continuing to surge as governments make ever more ambitious climate change commitments. Improvements in technology mean that capturing the CO2 emitted from industrial processes – and either sequestering it or using it elsewhere – is no longer a marginal solution with limited applications. ‘In the past decade, we’ve seen a shift from thinking about CCUS as being a coal-fired power plant with CCS bolted on, to regarding it far more as an emissions-reduction solution for industrial activities with shared CO2 transport and storage infrastructure,’ explains Samantha McCulloch, Head of the carbon capture utilisation and storage unit at the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), an international think tank headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, points out that the growing popularity of CCS is partly because it offers polluting industries a sustainable future. ‘CCS immediately offers a cost-effective, mature technology path to decarbonising large swathes of emissions-intensive industrial production,’ a spokesperson from the Institute’s London office told Energy World. ‘An often-overlooked strength of CCS is its ability to allow workers and industries that would otherwise be substantially disrupted by the energy transition to instead be vital contributors to achieving net zero,’ adds the spokesperson. Norway leads the way Europe currently has just two operating CCS facilities, the Sleipner and Snøhvit plants, both located in Norway, running since 1996 and 2008, respectively. But there are now more than 40 projects in the pipeline across 13 European countries. 34 Energy World | October 2021
Beck, International Director, Carbon Capture at the Bostonheadquartered Clean Air Task Force (CATF). A joint project between energy majors Equinor, Shell and Total, Northern Lights aims to transport, inject and store up to 1.5mn tonnes of CO2 per year in its initial phase. The project is supported by $2bn of funding from the Norwegian government – enough to cover the project’s entire capex and 10 years of operating costs. The facility aims to capture CO2 primarily from a cement plant in Oslo – and potentially from a nearby waste-toenergy facility – before transporting it 100 km off the Norwegian coast and storing it 2,500 m below the seabed, south of the Troll natural gas and oil field. Northern Lights’ developers say they are also in discussions with multiple other facilities in Europe, who may want to feed into its open-access CO2 transport and storage infrastructure. Aerial view of Shell’s Pernis refinery in Rotterdam – the Porthos CCS project is designed to capture carbon from several industrial emitters located at the Port Photo: Photographic Services, Shell International Limited
The Sleipner facility separates close to 1mn tonnes of CO2 per year from the processing of natural gas extracted from the Sleipner Vest and Utgard gas fields, offshore southwest Norway. The CO2 is then stored in the Utsira sandstone formation close to Sleipner Vest. Meanwhile, the Snøhvit facility is located on the island of Melkøya off the northern Norwegian coast and separates CO2 from the well stream of natural gas from the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea. The CO2 is then transported back to the Snøhvit field by pipeline and injected into a subsea formation. During normal operations, up to 700,000 tonnes of CO2 are stored at Snøhvit per year. Of the 40+ projects close to coming online in Europe, the Northern Lights facility, also in Norway, is an example of best practice in terms of its design and policy support, according to Lee
EU ‘hubs’ take shape Another advanced example of this collective model is the Porthos project in the Netherlands, which has received close to $2bn in subsidies from the Dutch government and the European Union. The funding will enable the facility to link up with multiple CO2 emitters at the Port of Rotterdam, feeding into shared CO2 transport infrastructure connected to offshore storage in empty North Sea gas fields. In its early years, the project is expected to store approximately 2.5mn tonnes of CO2 per year. While Europe is behind the US in terms of operational CCS facilities, European projects are designed to be the ‘next generation’ of CCS, according to Beck. They are largely based around ‘hubs’ of industrial emitters feeding into shared CO2 storage and infrastructure. This approach brings a number of advantages, such as economies of scale and reduced complexity, as
Carbon capture and storage
well as enabling the capture and storage of smaller volumes of CO2 from a wider range of emitters. ‘European governments are front-loading investment into transport and storage infrastructure to enable economies of scale,’ Beck explains. She said the pattern in Europe is that of big first movers who put forward plans and secure investment before inviting other facilities to feed into their infrastructure. This model allows dedicated transport and storage providers to operate that infrastructure, rather than – as is more common in the US – expecting the industrial emitter to take on those responsibilities. Support for CCUS has certainly been encouraged by the net zero commitments made across Europe, stresses McCulloch. ‘Higher carbon prices are also starting to improve the business case for CCUS investment and – most importantly – there is targeted support and funding, particularly in Norway, the Netherlands and the UK.’ That said, a lack of prepared CO2 storage capacity and the difficulty of getting sites approved has slowed progress in Europe. The EU’s theoretical CO2 storage capacity is more than 300bn tonnes, around half of which is offshore, enough for around 100 years of current emissions according to the CATF. McCulloch thinks it will be a challenge to ensure storage sites are adequately characterised and developed within a timeframe that matches emissions-reduction goals. ‘There is a real prospect of demand for storage outstripping supply in the near-to-medium term,’ she warns. CCS in the US The US has fewer such problems given there are 12 CCS projects already in operation (plus two
suspended facilities), in Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, with a further five just over the border in central Canada. And – like Europe – the US has more than 40 projects under development. The US’s oldest operating CCS facility, according to the GCCSI database, is the Terrell Natural Gas Processing Plant, which began operating in 1972 to separate, capture and store up to 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from natural gas processing in the Permian Basin. The country’s newest fullyoperational plant is the Illinois Industrial Sources Carbon Capture and Storage (IISCCS) project in Decatur, Illinois, which began operating in 2017 to capture and store CO2 from corn processing by US food producer ADM. IISCCS is permitted to operate until the end of 2022, with the potential to store up to 5.5mn tonnes of CO2 in total. In May this year, ADM and the University of Illinois announced the completion of a second CCS facility, the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP), which once operational aims to capture and store up to 1mn tonnes of CO2 from the corn processing plant over a period of three years. Both of ADM’s facilities feed into dedicated geologic storage, 2,000 m underground in the Mount Simon Sandstone formation in Illinois. While ‘hub’ approaches to CCS deployment are being explored in North America (notably in relation to ethanol-based projects in the Midwest), the US’s CCS projects are mostly ‘single source, single sink’, meaning that each project comprises a carbon capture plant with dedicated infrastructure for one storage site. The majority of the 40+ CCS projects announced in the US since
A joint project between Equinor, Shell and Total – the Northern Lights CCS facility in southern Norway – aims to transport, inject and store up to 1.5 mn tonnes of CO2 per year. Image: Equinor
While ‘hub’ approaches to CCS deployment are being explored in North America, the US’s CCS projects are mostly ‘single source, single sink’
its landmark 45Q tax reform in 2018 are close to existing storage sites. The US currently has the best outlook globally for geologic storage, able to store ‘hundreds of years of emissions’, Beck says, which has encouraged CCS projects to cluster around storage locations. But the CATF notes that one weakness, compared to European projects, is the lack of relatively sophisticated infrastructure that would make hub facilities more viable. A key reason is that government policy has lagged behind the needs of the industry, initially offering tax incentives for capturing CO2 without corresponding support for transport and storage. However, this is beginning to change. On 10 August 2021, the US senate passed the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill, which includes the SCALE Act (Storing CO2 and Lowering Emissions Act), which will support the financing and construction of CO2 transport and storage infrastructure. Such government backing should make lenders more willing to finance CCS projects on competitive terms. ‘Everyone says that carbon capture is expensive, but from a climate perspective, $50 or $100 per tonne of CO2 is not expensive to reduce emissions. What is expensive is the inability to obtain affordable financing’, Beck explains. CCS is also touted as a key enabling technology for the growing hydrogen economy, which in turn is seen as a low/no-carbon fuel of the future for transport and industry. The majority of hydrogen produced for industrial applications is currently derived from steam methane reformation (SMR), which produces ‘grey hydrogen’ with CO2 emissions associated with the combustion of natural gas. To get to cleaner ‘blue’ hydrogen, the majority of CO2 must be removed by CCS. Across North America, there are a total of seven CCS facilities with blue hydrogen production facilities, according to the GCCSI. Beck believes that through growing climate ambition and more attractive business cases, the appeal of CCS is starting to trump industry’s longstanding hesitance. The GCCSI thinks that a more forceful approach to project development is warranted. ‘To reach international climate targets, we cannot continue at the pace of deployment that we have seen in the past. We need to increase the number of CCS facilities by a 100-fold for international climate targets to be reached,’ its spokesperson tells Energy World. l Energy World | October 2021 35
Carbon capture and storage
FINANCE
The challenging costs of CCS Most climate models acknowledge the need for the permanent removal and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But it’s difficult to find organisations willing to fund the development of such technologies. Jennifer Johnson looks at how a combination of innovative finance and policy backing could turn the tide for CCS.
C
ost has long been a barrier to the successful deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. There’s no hiding the fact that it’s expensive to develop any new industrial process, but low carbon prices mean there’s presently little incentive for private companies to lead the way with CCS. From a financial perspective, retrofitting a gas-fired power station or a steel plant with carbon trapping equipment is nothing more than a capital outlay. This is why the fledgling CCS sector is searching for viable business and investment models to help get its technologies off the ground. The International Energy Agency (IEA)’s Sustainable Development Scenario stipulates that almost 15% of all emissions abatements needed to keep global temperature rise below 2°C must come from CCS. The Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), a think tank that aims to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture technologies, has calculated that this will require a
Climeworks, the developer of Orca, has broken funding records for direct air capture firms – showing that the private sector is increasingly interested in carbon capture Photo: Climeworks
nearly 100-fold increase in CCS capacity by 2050. According to a report from the Institute, Unlocking Private Finance to Support CCS Investments, the need for CCS in the Sustainable Development Scenario translates to building some 70–100 facilities each year. The cost of such a rollout will require somewhere between $655bn and nearly $1.3tn. ‘Most existing CCS facilities have been funded primarily on the books of large corporations or state-owned enterprises,’ says Dominic Rassool, Senior Consultant – Policy and Finance at the Global CCS Institute. ‘The magnitude of investment required, and the fact that many companies are constrained by their balance sheets means this model will not support rapid growth in CCS capacity. There are trillions of dollars available in the private sector for investing in CCS but allocating it requires policy incentives which facilitate viable business models for CCS.’
Project finance It’s incumbent on the private sector – rather than governments – to provide this capital because the requisite amount ‘far outstrips what governments are willing to pay in the timeframe required’, the report reads. This means CCS must be funded by capital markets, debt and additional sources, such as sovereign wealth funds, none of which currently support carbon capture at any significant scale. The GCCSI believes that a model known as project finance could encourage potential investors to come forward, as could the use of green bonds applied to CCS projects. Many of the CCS projects that have been funded to date have utilised a traditional corporate financing structure, in which a single entity foots the bill for the full development of a scheme. If the project exceeds (or merely meets) financial expectations, there will be no trouble. But if the project fails to generate the
What are the true costs of storing carbon? According to an analysis published in February by the IEA, there is no single cost for carbon capture projects, as the figures vary greatly depending on the source of CO2. Industrial processes that produce highly concentrated streams of carbon, including fossil gas processing, can cost $15–$25 per tonne of stored gas. Meanwhile, it can cost as little as $40 and as much as $120 per tonne to store CO2 produced by ‘dilute’ processes, including cement production and power generation. DAC is currently the most expensive method of capturing carbon. CCS developers must also factor in the costs of transporting and storing carbon dioxide, which varies according to location and the
36 Energy World | October 2021
availability of infrastructure. However, some sectors will simply have to be prepared to pay for carbon capturing technologies, as there are few other options for decarbonising them. Cement production is one such industry, as is iron and steelmaking, where production routes based on CCS are currently the most advanced and least-cost low-carbon options. IEA analysts have reported that CO2 capture raises the estimated costs of steel manufacturing by less than 10%, while approaches based on electrolytic hydrogen can raise costs by 35–70% compared with conventional production methods.
Carbon capture and storage
Dawn of DAC? In September, the world’s first direct air capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide facility opened in Iceland. Known as Orca, the plant was developed by the Swiss firm Climeworks and will reportedly capture 4,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. Once trapped, the carbon is then mixed with water and pumped deep underground, where it is stored in stone through a mineralisation process devised by Carbfix, an academic-industrial partnership. Orca will be powered by locally-sourced geothermal power, an abundant resource unique to Iceland’s geology. expected returns, lenders could have recourse to seizing assets from the developer firm. Many corporations, especially smaller ones, understandably consider this too big a risk to bear, meaning some may steer clear of CCS altogether. However, under a project financing structure, a company’s existing assets are protected, as any debt is typically provided on a ‘non-recourse’ basis. This also means that interest is charged at a higher rate than corporate debt. Multiple equity investors tend to participate in a single project, with each of them having an equity stake through what’s known as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) – see Figure 1. This arrangement is increasingly
As it stands, Climeworks is likely the best funded DAC firm in the world. It was announced in August 2020 that the company had raised a record $110mn for its technology from private investors – though far more capital will be needed to scale the technology to a meaningful size. The fact is, trapping and storing carbon is, for the moment, a very expensive business. Climeworks co-founder Christoph Gebald recently told the Washington Post that it costs between $600 and $800 to process one tonne of carbon dioxide using Orca. These
figures will need to drop to around $100 or $150 for the enterprise to make a profit without government subsidies. Those costs might be prohibitive today, but there’s no doubt that the world is in need of genuine carbon offsetting measures, of which DAC is one. Hard-to-decarbonise sectors, such as aviation and steelmaking, will rely on offsets to meet their climate targets – and as the time for action draws nearer, schemes like Climeworks’ will start to look more appealing.
common for large renewable projects, especially those in developing or emerging markets. For instance, the first utility-scale offshore wind project in the US, Vineyard Wind, recently lined up $2.3bn in project financing courtesy of nine major banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. In the case of CCS, commercial lenders will not initially be the sole providers of finance, as they tend to be more risk averse than entities with government ties – and demand higher returns. If banks believe project risks are inadequately managed, lending rates will go up and a project will not be able to take on the amount of debt that it requires. This inevitably creates what the GCCSI
Figure 1: Example of a project finance structure used to enable a CCS investment
Source: Global CCS Institute
calls a ‘funding gap’, which it believes can be filled by a trio of specialist financiers: national export credit agencies (ECAs), multilateral agencies (MLAs) and development financial institutions (DFIs). ECAs, such as UK Export Finance (UKEF), provide loans, guarantees and insurance to domestic corporations looking to do business overseas, often in emerging markets. In 2019/2020, for instance, UKEF handed out £4.4bn in support for UK exports, including more than £300mn for wind farm projects in Taiwan. German and Italian ECAs also came together last year to offer a total of $743mn in loan financing to National Grid for its €2bn subsea interconnector between the UK and Denmark. The 1,400 Viking Link cable will supply renewable energy to some 1.4mn households. Meanwhile, MLAs (including the World Bank and the European Investment Bank) and DFIs (such as the UK Infrastructure Bank and the USA’s OPIC) fund projects solely in emerging markets or industries in line with economic development goals. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is renowned for playing an important role in kickstarting the region’s offshore wind industry. Since 2003, the EIB has provided about €10bn to support the construction of 9 GW of offshore capacity – or about one third of existing capacity. In shouldering risks that commercial lenders were unwilling to bear, the EIB helped to shore up the sector until other lenders felt it could offer them comfortable returns. Today, the bank seldom gets involved with wind power at all, except in Europe’s less developed economies. However, it contributed to the funding of a new floating wind park in Belgium this summer, indicating that it also intends to support the development of this promising renewable technology. Energy World | October 2021 37
Carbon capture and storage
Green bonds To develop and commercialise carbon capture, the Global CCS Institute believes in using many of the same financial instruments that helped renewables rise to prominence – green bonds among them. These fixed-income instruments are a kind of loan made by an investor to a borrower to finance the operation and development of a green asset or project. Climate change mitigation technologies usually fall under this purview, though there are exceptions for CCS facilities at coal power stations, for example. Investor interest in green bonds has skyrocketed in recent years as fund managers face scrutiny over the environmental impact of their practices. At the same time, many of these investors have also found that green assets deliver comfortable returns. Assuming that successful CCS deployments – backed by specialist financiers – begin to grow in the coming years, the GCCSI predicts that private sector funding will increase. Green bonds, which can be issued by banks, governments or corporations, are likely to be part of this picture, even if some evidence points to their negligible impact on the emissions intensity of their issuers. For green bonds to make a
difference, the GCCSI recommends that they are applied to ‘hard to abate’ sectors. Under the EU’s new sustainable finance taxonomy, CCS is considered a ‘green’ investment – opening the door to increasing bond issuances from the industry. This year, the UK government is planning to issue £15bn in green savings bonds of its own, which will allow investors to fund renewable energy projects, as well as CCS and ‘blue’ hydrogen ventures. However, some ethical investors have indicated they will forego the sale because of the limited existing evidence of carbon capture’s efficacy. William de Vries, Director of Impact Equities and Bonds at Netherlands-based Triodos Investment Management, recently told Bloomberg that his firm would not purchase any of the UK’s green bonds. ‘We have a serious problem with these types of projects because we don’t think carbon capture projects will add to carbon reduction in the end,’ he told the news outlet.
There’s no way of knowing whether CCS – which still raises eyebrows in some environmental circles – will go the way of offshore wind and become a global industrial superpower
Future trajectory Ultimately, the policy actions of governments will determine the future trajectory of CCS – and the energy transition more broadly. If policymakers and government-
linked financiers throw their weight decisively behind CCS, it’s likely that private capital will follow. Naturally, advocates of carbon capture say that now is the time for key decisions to be made and policies to be announced. ‘What happens in the next decade will be crucial in enabling CCS to reach necessary scale in time to limit the impacts of global warming,’ says a statement by Brad Page, CEO of the GCCSI. ‘The necessary investment far exceeds what governments are willing to provide, particularly within a short timeframe. Governments have a key role to play in creating an enabling environment for very large-scale private sector capital allocation through climate policies which place a value on CO2 emissions reductions.’ There’s no way of knowing whether CCS – which still raises eyebrows in some environmental circles – will go the way of offshore wind and become a global industrial superpower. But one thing is certain: it took a patchwork of funding methods and a wide variety of investors to scale the sector to its present size. Carbon capture will be no different in theory or in practice. ●
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