CNA speaks to an Oman-based firm that is trying to convert carbon dioxide into rock and a Finnish start-up aiming to extract carbon from waste plant matter before converting it into a stable form for permanent storage.
Planet savers or Trojan horses? Amid debate over carbon capture, start-ups emerging to provide solutions
44.01 relies on natural forming peridotite rock, which can found in desert terrain in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. (Photo: 44.01)
DUBAI: In the rocky desert, more than 100 kilometres from Dubai where global leaders and industry titans have converged to thrash out agreements on climate change, a new technology is taking form.
Learning from ancient earthly processes of nature, a start-up called 44.01 is piloting a technique called mineralisation to achieve a bold aspiration: eliminate carbon dioxide.
ADVERTISEMENT
Rock formations in the area are the key to the technology. Ultramafic rock called peridotite is typically found around 40 kilometres nderground, but in many parts of the world it has pushed up to the surface. When it comes into contact with carbon dioxide, it converts it into a carbon mineral.
“What we’re doing is we’re taking this natural process, and with our technology, we’re accelerating it by about 100,000 times. So rather than taking decades for nature to do this, we’re doing it in months,” explained 44.01’s chief executive officer Talal Hasan, whose firm is named for the molecular mass of carbon dioxide.
Talal Hasan speaking to CNA at COP28 displays an example of peridotite mineralisation. (Photo: Jack Board/CNA)
The implications of being able to lock away harmful emissions into harmless mineral deposits are huge. They are also lucrative for companies that can prove it works.
As debate rages about technology, regulations and timeframes to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, which are a major source of emissions, carbon capture technologies like 44.01 have entered the conversation.
Carbon dioxde is responsible for 76 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, contributes to about two-thirds of total heating influence on the planet’s atmosphere.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr Hasan has grand ambitions to nullify a lot of it, collaborating with air capture technology companies. He has a target of gigatonne levels of removal.
“A gigatonne is a billion tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of all of the world’s emissions from air travel,” he said.
Peridotite rock can naturally absorb CO2, but the process is sped up using 44.01’s technology. (Photo: 44.01)
AN UNABATED DEBATE
Climate science has made it clear that only radical transformations – especially around energy use – will suffice to keep the earth on track to just 1.5 degrees Celsius warming above pre-industrial levels, a target enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
The planet is currently on course for at least 2.8 degrees warming and this year was the hottest ever recored.
Scientists now concede that it is inevitable that carbon removal will need to be among the suite of options to limit global warming.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a 2022 report that to achieve net zero emissions, “the deployment of carbon dioxide removals to counterbalance hard-to-abate residual emissions is unavoidable”.
But analysts have warned that deploying such technology cannot come at the expense of rapid decarbonisation and the transition away from fossil fuels altogether. In reality, it may be doing just that.
The costs of scaling carbon capture and storage (CCS), which involves capturing emissions, sending them through pipelines and storing them deep underground in geological formation, for example, could be astronomical.
A new report from Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment found that depending heavily on CCS to reach net zero targets on it would be “highly economically damaging”.
The price ag could be US$30 trillion costlier than other strategies, like investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and electrification.
ADVERTISEMENT
During the climate talks at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai, instead of agreeing to phase out the burning of all fossil fuels, some countries are pushing to add the phrase “unabated” to the text. It is a loaded term, according to energy analysts CNA spoke to at COP28.
The definition of the word in an energy context is subjective, but it would open the door to countries to target net-zero emissions but at the same time continue polluting, if those emissions can be captured by technology, said Mr Carroll Muffett, the president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
“CCS allows them to justify continuing producing oil and gas under the myth that the emissions are going to magically disappear. And the truth is, the emissions don’t magically disappear,” he said.
FILE PHOTO: Carbon dioxide storge tanks are seen at a cement plant and carbon capture facility in Wuhu, Anhui province, China September 11, 2019. REUTERS/David Stanway/File Photo
A CLIMATE ‘BUZZ TOPIC’
Not all carbon capture projects were born equal. They have different applications and use for varying industries. Some of the technology can be retrofitted to existing power and industrial plants, allowing for their continued operation.
Thus, instead of the wind down of the oil, gas and coal sector – which has been widely advocated for by science – it could live on, buttressed by carbon capture.
The fear among many experts is that mostly untried, unscaled and unviable technological solutions have become a pillar on which polluting industries now lean upon, which would slow or stymie the transition to clean energy.
“I think it’s a buzz topic because the fossil fuel industry sees it as its only hope,” said Ms Claire Fyson, the co-head of Climate Analytics’ climate policy team.
“It’s kind of the industry’s last gasp.This is kind of a Trojan horse that the fossil fuel industry is using to funnel into the negotiations to keep their industry alive,” she said,
A report from Climate Analytics released during COP28 warned that the reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS) could release an extra 86 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere between 2020 and 2050.
That is based on a scenario where carbon capture rates only reach 50 per cent rather than 95 per cent.
Ms Fyson said that CCS facilities have continued to underperform. As a result, the International Energy Agency has lowered its expectations for the role of CCS in its future net zero scenarios.
“Carbon capture, and storage only works if you capture basically everything, and that’s not what we’re seeing,” she said.
She said CCS remained a niche technology that should be used only in circumstances where there are no alternative solutions.
Mr Muffett was even stronger in his criticism.
“There is no redeeming case for carbon apture and storage in any industry anywhere, anywhere. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t accomplish anything. And it costs a huge amount of money,” he said.
“To lock away carbon and really protect the climate from it, you have to lock it away for 10,000 years. Show me one example of human infrastructure that has lasted that long.”
Capuava oil refinery owned by Petrobras sits in Maui, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. The oil and gas sector, one of the major emitters of planet-warming gases, will need a rapid and substantial overhaul for…see more
EVERY TOOL IN THE TOOLBOX
For Mr Hasan, 44.01’s objective is systematic decarbonisation, especially for hard-to-evade emissions in industries like cement and steel. He said the world needs “every tool in the toolbox” to limit global warming.
His company’s technology is not CCS – rather carbon capture and mineralisation (CCM) and his company has been recognised for its green aspirations – it was the winner of the 2022 Eathshot Prize in the Fix Our Climate category.
It is also the first CCM project in the Middle East being undertaken by an energy company, after 44.01 recently signed a partnership with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the largest offshore oil and gas producers in the world.
ADNOC’s head Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is the COP28 president and has attracted criticism for saying there was “no science” to support a phaseout of oil and gas, during a panel discussion while the forum was ongoing.
The tie-up with 44.01 is part of ADNOC’s commitment to US$15 billion in a range of decarbonisation projects by 2030.
Mr Hasan said 44.01 is reliant on energy companies with the infrastructure, equipment and personnel needed to scale solutions.
“We don’t want to promote the status quo. We want to genuinely decarbonise hard-to-evade emissions. We see it as either everyone wins or everyone loses,” he said.
44.01 has completed a proof-of-concept project in 2021 in Oman, followed by the pilo operation in the UAE.
“Our next project is going to be about a 10 times scale up,” Mr Hasan said, explaining that because peridotite is found across many continents and countries, including Japan and Australia, he hoped expansion could be global.
Related:
Making carbon mineralisation accessible is crucial for net-zero targets: 44.01 CEO
Other emerging companies are taking a different approach with similar levels of ambition, by providing industrial scale decarbonisation through carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
Finnish company CarboCulture has patented a technology called Carbolysis to extract carbon from waste plant matter, or biomass. It converts that carbon into a “stable, inert form for permanent storage”.
The result of the process is biochar in the form of small pellets that can also be used to enrich soil and improve water retention or be processed for energy generation.
The company says that the equivalent of more than three tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere is trapped insideevery tonne of its biochar.
Carboculture looks to decarbonise industries that produce biomass waste. (Photo: Carboculture)
Its CEO has the same gigatonne goal as 44.01 and just opened one of Europe’s largest CO2 removal facilities, a 1,000 tonne biochar manufacturing system near Helsinki.
“While we think there’s going to be a multitude of different ways to do negative emissions, which will be wonderful, Biochar is here today,” Ms Henrietta Moon, Carboculture’s CEO and co-founder told CNA on the sidelines of COP28.
Carboculture will co-locate its facilities with any industries generating a high volume of biomass waste. “So food production, for example, or food processing residues, as well as forestry residues are key targets for our next facilities,” she said.
The company is still in the pilot stage but has conducted research and development with its reactors in Europe and the United States.
Carboculture CEO Henrietta Moon speaks to CNA on the sidelines of COP28 in Dubai. (Photo:Jack Board/CNA)
She said that both governments and corporate actors are increasingly clued to the reality that net zero and warming targets are “barely achievable” without relying on CDR.
The technology is expected to play a key role in the European Union’s plan to reach net-zero by 2050, based on analysis by the IPCC.
While Ms Moon is confident in the commercial scalability of Carbolysis – the company has expansion plans in the coming years – most CDR technologies remain unproven and will take major injections of finance and infrastructure development to be viable.
“We are trying to learn everything that we can from the renewables industry and those industries that scaled super quickly,” she said.
“But it’s hard work, it’s still on the ground, it takes a lot of partners. It’s classic infrastructure, project development. So none of this is going to be done overnight.”
Source: CNA/jb(kb)