The Deployment of Carbon Capture and Utilisation Technologies Takes a Key Step Forward
01.10.2019
International Effort Establishes Global Standards to Meet Tech’s Growth and Opportunity Across Sectors
On October 1st, 2019, representatives from EIT Climate-KIC, the Global CO2 Initiative, the Phoenix Initiative, and other interested stakeholders gathered in Brussels to discuss the future of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) assessment methodologies, a critical step in unlocking R&D and commercialisation efforts for this growing climate solution.
This workshop is part of an initiative by the Global CO2 Initiative, EIT Climate-KIC, the Phoenix Initiative, and other European organisations to harmonise their individual efforts to create assessment guidelines for carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies across sectors by determining their economic and environmental impacts.
The workshop was hosted by the IASS as part of its contribution to the CO2nsistent project, a three-year effort initiated and funded by Global CO2 Initiative and EIT Climate-KIC with the aim to provide an extensive tool for the assessment of CCU.
CCU involves the capture of CO2, a potent greenhouse gas, from the air or point sources and its subsequent conversion into products or services. It has been touted as a technology that promotes connections between industrial sectors, offering economic opportunity and environmental impact reduction. Most importantly, when fully deployed, carbon management in general is set to play an important role in the future as one of the solutions to mitigate the climate crisis all while creating a new economy. As CCU gains momentum as a possible solution to reduce global CO2 emissions, the need for a standardised assessment of CCU implementation grows more urgent.
The establishment of guidelines by multiple individual parties is an issue for the standardisation of CCU assessment. Today’s meeting helped clarify whether the individually developed guidelines are consistent with each other. Potential inconsistencies in CCU guidelines could lead to confusion in decision-making when time comes for large-scale CCU implementation. During an earlier workshop at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in April 2019, the Global CO2 Initiative, EIT Climate-KIC, the US National Energy Technology Laboratory, and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory successfully addressed guidelines harmonisation within the context of ISO standards and multiple national efforts within the United States.