No climate neutrality without Carbon Capture & Utilisation

CO2 Value Europe launches a first-of-a-kind quantitative assessment of the contribution of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) towards climate neutrality in the EU. By 2050, at least 20% of GHG reduction from technologies will come from CCU. 

Dr Célia Sapart is the Scientific Director at CO2 Value Europe.

CCU is a broad term that covers processes that aim at capturing carbon (CO2 and CO) from flue gas or directly from the air and converting it into a variety of products such as renewable fuels, chemicals, and materials, creating a circular carbon economy and substituting fossil carbon.

CCU is recognised in the last IPCC assessment report as a climate-mitigating solution to carbon-intensive sectors (e.g. lime, cement, steel), where no or very few alternatives exist to reduce emissions and move away from fossil resources. These solutions should not substitute large-scale efforts in preventing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when more sober solutions are available. However, they should be seen as crucial opportunities to reduce emissions in sectors that will continue to rely on carbon-based feedstock and fuels. While no exhaustive quantification exists to date on the global climate mitigation potential of CCU technologies, Life-Cycle Assessments (LCA) show that their impact depends largely on the context of their deployment. Indeed, CCU can reduce or avoid GHG emissions, but it can also lead to negative emissions via Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) when CO2 from the atmosphere or biogenic sources is stored permanently in building materials.

CO2 Value Europe, the non-profit association representing the CCU community in Europe, just launched a first quantification of the CCU contribution towards climate neutrality in the EU. The association has performed a two-year exercise, together with international experts to assess the mitigating potential of these technologies, by 1) identifying the main driving forces and key uncertainties related to their deployment, 2) developing scenarios that illustrate the role of CCU in the future, and 3) developing an open access model, together with CLIMACT, that yields quantitative information about the role of CCU by 2050 in the EU. The key results are summarised below.

Approx. 21% of the technological effort to reach climate neutrality by 2050 will come from CCU

The current economics and regulatory measures in place represent only 34% of the total effort required to reach climate neutrality in the EU. Those measures must therefore be significantly reinforced by additional actions, including societal changes (30%) and technological development (37%). By 2050, CCU will reduce CO2 emissions by at least 250Mt (21% of GHG reduction from technologies).

By producing 30% of the chemicals, 18% of the fuels, 76% of ceramics, and 100% of prefab concrete, CCU will reduce EU industrial emissions by 20% in 2050. Using CCU fuels in the maritime and aviation sectors will reduce their emissions by 35 and 38%, respectively.

To support the large scale deployment of CCU products, the EU should better recognise the concept of carbon circularity through the reuse of unavoidable carbon or carbon coming from the atmosphere as a key lever for moving away from a fossil-driven economy. The EU should refer explicitly and systematically in relevant policy initiatives (Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, Net Zero Industry Act, EU climate targets for 2040, etc.) to the three core CCU pathways (i.e., fuels, chemicals and mineralisation), and set targets accordingly for 2030, 2040 and 2050 to drive down the use of fossil resources.

The EU has the potential to capture 320 MtCO2 with at least half being used as feedstock

By 2050, CO2 will be captured from Direct Air Capture (DAC) (26%), process emissions (23%), biogenic emissions (23%), CCU fuel combustion (2%), and from remaining fossil fuel emissions (6%). More than half of the captured carbon will be used as feedstock to substitute virgin fossil carbon, while the rest will be stored underground via Carbon Capture and Storage. From the 173 MtCO2 utilised, 50% will be used to produce CCU fuels, 42% for chemicals production and 8% will be mineralised permanently in building materials. 

To substitute fossil-based products and ensure sufficient non-fossil carbon supply in the coming decades, a faster ramp-up of carbon capture in industries with high process emissions and of DAC is crucial, especially to reach the demand for fuels and chemicals by 2040s.

CCU fuels will answer at least 13% of the EU primary energy demand by 2050

CCU fuels will represent 1161 TWh of the energy mix in the EU, including 474 TWh for aviation and marine transports, 509 TWh to replace fossil fuels in the industry and 178 TWh in land transports. While an ambitious development of CCU applications requires some imports of CCU fuels and renewable H2, their overall volume and share in the economy will be way lower than the current imports of fossil fuels. In our scenario, energy imports represent close to 10% of the primary demand in 2050, while today they are at more than 60%.

However, the production of CCU fuels and chemicals, especially for hydrogen synthesis, requires a significant amount of clean energy. By 2050, the domestic production of CCU fuels and chemicals for the transport and industry sectors will require approx. 22% of the modelled low-carbon electricity production for the EU. There is therefore a need to complete the current EU regulatory framework to provide legal certainty for CCU fuels producers in and outside Europe (e.g. concerning the eligibility of CO2 sources, and definitions of carbon pricing mechanisms); at the same time, international cooperation is required for the development of compliance mechanisms that will take due consideration of specificities at the non-European level.

Want to learn more?

This exercise is the first stage of a continuous process to monitor and quantify the role of CCU in contributing to climate neutrality in the EU. One of the main results is the creation of CLIMACT 2050 PATHWAY EXPLORER FOR CCU, the first-of-a-kind, open-access CCU model to explore and put in context the contribution of the different CCU pathways in the EU. To read the full report and have access to the model click here.