CCUS Applied to Industrial Sources: A Significant Near-term Deployment Opportunity

There is growing acknowledgement that the capture and storage of CO₂ emissions from industrial sources is an attractive opportunity for emissions reduction that is often easier and cheaper than capture from power plants. Industrial sources account for around 25 percent of global CO₂ emissions, and those emissions are expected to grow by over 50 percent by 2050. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has projected that, in order to limit global temperature increase to less than 2ËšC, almost half of the CO₂ captured and stored between 2015 and 2050 would come from industrial sources. Much of the progress that has already been made on CCUS is associated with industrial sources. Of the 20+ large-scale CCS facilities currently in operation or under construction globally, 19 capture CO₂ from industrial sources. The majority of those include facilities where the CO₂ is already separated as part of the production process (e.g., natural gas processing and fertiliser production) and is relatively inexpensive to capture. These 19 industrial facilities have a CO₂ capture capacity of approximately 35 million tonnes per year. While industrial sources represent a significant percentage of global CO₂ emissions, there are challenges associated with widespread deployment of capture technologies. Much of the governmental and public attention on reducing CO₂ emissions has focused on the power sector, reducing the sense of urgency for development of cost-effective approaches in industrial sectors. In addition, the products of the industrial sector are often competing in a global market with tight profit margins, making manufacturers sensitive to changes in production costs. Finally, emissions are scattered over many industries with widely divergent characteristics. This presentation will provide a summary of current industrial CCUS activity, associated costs, and opportunities for future deployment given incentives such as the 45Q policy.