The market for carbon removal is expanding rapidly, and private money is flooding in from other tech companies that are seeking to help the early-stage carbon capture and storage start-ups to scale up and bring down costs. In this blog, we look at carbon capture, utilisation, and storage technology, with some of the top carbon capture companies that are leading the way in 2022.
Investment in carbon removal technologies has started to heat up, as global warming hits record heights. The last few months have seen the highest levels of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in history, whilst the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that "the world isn't on track to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels".
Curbing emissions is no longer an option. Climate scientists have now said that in order to prevent dangerous rises in global temperature, we need to also remove carbon dioxide from the air that's already been released.
There have been various studies that have found that by mid-century, the world may need to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year, as well as rapid emission reductions - with hopes that this could halt global warming at 2C or even pull the climate back into a much safer zone.
What is Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage?
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), also known as 'carbon capture', is the process we can use to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at their source, which can help to prevent them from being released into the atmosphere.
CCUS involves capturing carbon, processing it into a suitable form, and to then either transport it for re-use or transfer it to suitable underground storage or sequestration sites. These sites usually vary and most technologies tend to use different types of geologic formations as storage sites.
Common types will include oil and gas reservoirs, coal seams that aren't suitable for mining, and deep saline reservoirs. The structures that are used to store carbon underground are the same ones that have naturally stored carbon, natural gasses, crude oil, and other substances for millions of years.
Carbon storage is a safe and permanent solution - it removes carbon from the atmosphere and negates the greenhouse gas effect that drives climate change and global warming.
Why Carbon Capture is Crucial.
It's well established that we need to move to renewable energy and to stop the carbon dioxide emissions at the source. The issue is, we can't do that fast enough, at the scale needed to power the entire world and the increasing demand for electricity and fuel.
Back in 2016, the Paris Agreement came into effect, with intentions to prevent global warming from increasing our temperature by more than 1.5 to 2C. If we had enough time to achieve this, a steady shift to renewables would be a great solution. However, we're rapidly running out of time - at the rate we're producing greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide, we are extremely unlikely to achieve that target.
As global population increases, and economies grow, the demand for electricity and fuel is also rising. This, along with the challenges of establishing renewable energy plants at the scale needed to meet the demand, only means that we will be relying on fossil fuels for energy and transportation for many more years.
Accelerating the development and the implementation of carbon capture technology is potentially our only reasonable option to stem the flow of CO2 into the atmosphere, whilst also removing historical carbon to reduce the impact.
Carbon capture technology has been around for many decades, but it hasn't been drastically adopted due to the cost of implementation and other limitations. Although, many carbon capture companies have developed and refined their technology in order to create safe, effective, clean and scalable solutions - here are some of those companies that are paving the way for the market.
Leading Companies:
Here are some of our favourite carbon capture companies that are currently fighting to reduce carbon emissions from the source, whilst combatting the problem of historical carbon emissions that are already in our atmosphere.
Global Thermostat - were established in the USA back in 2010. Their technology captures and concentrates carbon directly from the atmosphere and/or from industrial emissions, which can be sold to different industries, who can then re-use it in their own manufacturing processes.
This approach makes carbon capture profitable, rather than being labelled as a financial liability for the emitting body. It also creates a potential business operation for those who wish to capture atmospheric carbon to sell it on to industries that need it.
Carbfix - are based in Iceland, where they've been an operation at the HellisheiĆ°i Power Plant since 2014. Back in 2019, they were established as a subsidiary of Reykjavik Energy, and have also been operating as a separate entity since January 2020.
Carbfix's mission is to become a key instrument in tackling the current climate crisis by reaching 1bn tons of permanently stored CO2 as quickly as possible.
When they capture CO2, the carbon is then dissolved in water and injected underground, into naturally reactive rock formations of suitable composition. This makes their technology extremely unique and highly effective, as they're able to capture carbon and store it in a safe, stable and permanent manner.
Barton Blakeley Technologies - are a company based in Harpenden, UK, founded in 2016. They're an Applied Sciences and Advanced Engineering Organisation, who was built around known scientific and industrial practices from Automotive, Aerospace and Chemical Industries, that help to develop reliable emission reducing technology and systems.
Their carbon conversion system, known as HYPER XI, converts greenhouse gases like CO2 into high value products. The development of HYPER XI, is designed to allow manufacturing of high value materials through low-cost methods, which makes profitable revenue streams and emissions co-operative.
Climeworks - is a Swiss company that was founded back in 2009, with a mission to inspire billions of people to remove CO2 from the air and tackle climate change. Climeworks provide a solution for tackling historic emissions through direct air capture.
This company use a technology that consists of modular CO2 collectors stacked to build machines of any size. The machine's fans draw air into the plant, where a selective new filter material binds the CO2 in conjunction with the moisture in the air.
Climeworks have also partnered with previously mentioned Carbfix, that uses the CO2 captured to store it permanently underground.
The world is currently facing one of the biggest challenges its ever experienced - the need to remove around 1300 gigatons of historically built emissions in the atmosphere and transition to a net zero economy, which isn't going to be easy. Replacing fossil fuel energy with renewables and hydrogen energy seems like a great solution, however, it will take decades for the infrastructure and power capacities to be available globally. Whilst the world is moving towards clean energies, like the companies we have mentioned above, carbon capture technologies could facilitate the process and play a huge part in reducing the flow of current emissions.
There are plenty of carbon capture companies that are working to reverse climate change and are definitely speeding up the race towards de-carbonisation and unlocking the potential of carbon removal, storage, and utilisation. We look forward to seeing the sector develop and make a considerable difference to the world's future.
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