Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) has been around for years, but complexity, reliability, costs and the overall business use case have kept its global adoption relatively low. With few external pressures driving wider adoption and the monetary hurdle of each facility needing to invest in its own CCUS solution, this tool simply has not met the cost-benefit threshold.
That tide is turning as corporate commitments to meet aggressive net zero targets and qualify for government incentives have driven creativity around how to create a viable cost structure for effective carbon management. It has become increasingly clear that meeting net zero targets means more CCUS facilities are needed. According to the 2021 Global Status of CCS Report, there are currently only 135 commercial large-scale CCUS facilities operating worldwide, but more than 2,000 will be needed by 2050 to meet global climate mitigation targets.
Having a viable, pervasive ability to remove CO2 would mean that emerging energy sources like hydrogen could accelerate. Ultimately, renewable hydrogen produced from non-carbon or “green” sources like solar and wind are extremely attractive, but the demand side of hydrogen applications will need to grow rapidly to create economies of scale. CCUS makes that possible through “decarbonized hydrogen,” a stepping stone toward our hydrogen future. While we have not yet realized this promise at scale, CCUS can facilitate the production of clean hydrogen from fossil fuels—the sources of most hydrogen production today. With a deliberate approach to align on the economic factors, CCUS could serve as a least-cost path to bring low-carbon hydrogen into new markets at scale.
To make CCUS projects economically feasible, many point to new regional carbon capture hubs that can turn CO₂ into a “carbon capture-as-a-service” business model. Instead of different companies developing separate CCUS facilities, which can be extremely costly, these hubs would share infrastructure and a pipeline network to capture, aggregate, transport and store carbon from a variety of local refineries and petrochemical, fertilizer, steel and other facilities located in close proximity to each other. This approach creates a shared resource, driving stronger commercial opportunity and creating vastly improved ecnomies of scale since companies will split the cost of storage and cut overall costs by transporting compressed CO₂ in a larger, shared pipeline network.
As important as optimizing the capture process itself is custody transfer and fiscal metering systems that can precisely measure the mass of CO2 moving from point to point and business to business. This allows manufacturers to quantify emissions from their own sources, which is necessary for carbon pricing and ensuring regulatory compliance. It also lets storage facilities know how much to invoice their suppliers.
Whether companies are quantifying CO2 for tax credits or monetizing CCUS in other ways, being able to depend on custody transfer solutions like high-accuracy flow meters that can tolerate extreme pressures, low temperatures and large swings in density, and in-line analyzers that can detect chemical impurities in gaseous or liquid forms is essential to maintaining profitability.
Building new hubs to make carbon capture conomically attractive will require advanced automation technologies, digital twin solutions, software and new engineering tools to ensure the facilities operate safely, reliably and at the lowest cost.
Core carbon capture technologies are traditional process separation technologies, a foundation of Emerson’s expertise. This expertise, along with software and solutions, have supported some of the world's largest CCUS projects, from site appraisal and modeling to operation and monitoring.
Optimizing the carbon capture process is the first step; Emerson’s energy management information systems (EMIS) help increase process visibility and provides data for better decision making. The EMIS provides up-to-the-minute, meaningful information about site energy performance to better identify inefficiencies and irregularities. This helps operators take real-time corrective action to save time and energy. By detecting poor performance, the EMIS can reduce site energy usage by up to 15%. Precise control of rotating equipment also can reduce energy consumption and ensure machinery health, preventing downtime.
Liquefaction of the CO₂ is required for it to be transported to a CCUS facility, and with Emerson’s expertise in process controls and reliable measurements, the CO2 can be continuously monitored for visibility. Compressors play a critical role in the process; Emerson’s pervasive sensing technologies and data analytics provide continuous monitoring of compressor health and performance to mitigate downtime, equipment damage and excessive maintenance costs. Optimized digital valve solutions ensure stable flow to the compressor, preventing damage and increasing compressor life.
Underground carbon storage projects depend on reliable and accurate analysis of subsurface geological formations. E&P (exploration and production) software, from Emerson’s AspenTech software business, combined with digital twin solutions provides dynamic simulation modeling of physical environments, which enables accurate mapping and measuring of underground storage complexes. Furthermore, reliable assessment of the long-term storage containment integrity is critical to business decisions around site selection and development. Downhole gauges provide continuous, real-time data from the storage reservoir, ensure wellbore integrity and process reliability while software analyzes and interprets subsurface changes observed on seismic data through the project lifetime.
Finally, keeping new CCUS projects on schedule and on budget is vital for reducing risk. Emerson’s Project Certainty approach brings together modern project management strategies, innovative engineering practices and digital technologies to eliminate costs, reduce complexity and accommodate change.
Moves to drive stronger CCUS adoption are having an environmental impact now, but their potential for future impact is even greater. As industries continue to advance CCUS, the regional carbon capture hub model can be expanded to also be a regional hydrogen production facility. Subscribers to the CCUS service can also purchase hydrogen for their production processes, and any CO₂ resulting from decarbonized hydrogen production can be immediately sequestered within the hub.
This two-way model has the potential to create a closed loop system—or circular economy—for carbon and hydrogen. From using facility waste and sharing energy and material streams to capturing carbon and producing hydrogen from the most economical source, it becomes a circular economy that reuses and repurposes both hydrogen and carbon while lowering costs and generating revenue. Reaching net zero will be virtually impossible without CCUS; in the fight against climate change, carbon capture hubs have the potential to be a game changer.
