GHGT-17 Day 4 Plenary

Developments in Alberta

On day 4 of the GHGT-17 conference, the plenary kicked off with an address from Rebecca Schultz, the Alberta Minister of Environment & Protected Areas.

The Minister shared how Alberta is a leader in energy resources and currently has over 5 active CCS projects capturing and geologically storing CO₂ emissions, with many more projects in the pipeline. These include major projects such as the Alberta Trunk line, the Quest storage facility and the Heidelberg Cement Plant. She advocated their approach of close partnership with industry to help ensure that some of the hardest to decarbonise companies can be a part of the solution.

The Alberta Technology, Innovation, and Emissions Reduction Programme (TIER) includes a levy on heavy emitters, and the finance it raises is invested into new and emerging technologies, with over CAD $1.5 billion allocated so far.

Brevik and Beyond

Next up was Corwyn Bruce who shared the latest CCS developments at Heidelberg Materials, including the first carbon capture project on a cement plant.

Heidelberg Materials is one of the world’s largest building materials companies, operating over 150 cement kilns worldwide and has ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 operations. These include a 47% emission reduction across the cementitious materials portfolio, reducing their cumulative emissions by 10 million tons through CCUS. They also aim to generate 50% of their revenue from sustainable products.

They have 8 large-scale CCUS facilities in development including the well-known Brevik project in Norway, as well as a further 5 pilot and technology development projects, costing a total of €1.5 billion by 2023 in CCUS projects. Not all their projects will be amine-based, their test project in Devnya Bulgaria will be an oxy-combustion-based facility.

However, Corwyn highlighted the need for a strong business case and that with first-of-a-kind projects there is always a significant ‘early-mover premium’ and that as a result, capital funding is essential. These premiums include project risk, piloting, competitive FEED processes and contingency equipment.

He also shared that Heidelberg Materials is particularly interested in selling low-carbon materials rather than offsets, however, this market will take time and will need policy support to develop and in the short term there is a need to secure a value for the emission reductions.

Australia’s CCS Landscape

The final plenary speaker for the 2024 GHGT conference was Matthias Raab, the CEO at CO2CRC, a research organisation practising CCUS with commercially relevant demonstrations. They have the world’s only deep research sub-surface facility and have trialled many technologies used in commercial projects today.

Based on recent CO2CRC research, if Australia is to hit their net zero target by 2050, CCS will be an essential technology. Their modelling showed that if 100% renewable primary energy with extensive electrification is assumed, Australia will still need 85-150 Mtpa of CCS by 2045.

Australia has more CCS policy drivers in place than ever before. These include their Safeguarding Mechanism which requires major emitters (>100 Ktpa) to reduce their emissions by 5% every year through to 2030 and the Future Gas Strategy which requires major new resource projects to be net zero by the time they are operational. There are also drivers such as the London Protocol which places requirements on the international transport of CO₂.

However, unlike in Europe and North America, there are no generous incentives for CCS. Without these incentives, project proponents must take 100% of the risk. This means that LNG project proponents could instead purchase carbon credits to meet their emissions targets. Similarly, many other nations are out funding Australia when it comes to CCS. Even small nations like Denmark have more government funding available.

Reinforcing a theme present throughout all 3 presentations, and the whole GHGT-17 conference, Matthias emphasised that collaboration is key, involving government and industry both nationally and internationally.