The Potential and Limitations of Using Carbon Dioxide
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The potential and limitations of using carbon dioxide POLICY BRIEFING CHAPTER ONE POLICY BRIEFING Politics and science frequently move on vastly Executive summary different timescales. A policymaker seeking evidence on a new policy will often need the answer in weeks or months, while it takes The UK faces a challenge in deciding how Given the timescales necessary to invent, years to design and undertake the research to it can transit to a low carbon future whilst scale, commercialise and industrially deploy rigorously address a new policy question. The pursuing an active industrial strategy that processes that use carbon dioxide, continuing value of an extended investigation into a topic creates growth and jobs in the short and research is needed to ensure future progress. cannot be understated, but when this is not medium term. The economics of large scale Key challenges include improving the possible good evidence is better than none. carbon capture and storage has raised interest fundamental understanding of catalysis; the in the potential of using carbon dioxide. need to produce cheap green hydrogen at The Royal Society’s series of policy briefings scale; and developing sources of competitively is a new mechanism aiming to bridge that This policy briefing examines the science of priced low carbon energy which can drive divide. Drawing on the expertise of Fellows using carbon dioxide as a feedstock. carbon dioxide conversion to products. of the Royal Society and the wider scientific Tackling these challenges will need to be The technology for using carbon dioxide in community, these policy briefings provide complemented by advances in process and applications such as synthetic fuels for aviation rapid and authoritative syntheses of current reaction engineering and novel process design. through to the manufacture of a range of evidence. These briefings lay out the current Further, international partnerships are required speciality chemicals is available. These new state of knowledge and the questions that to ensure breakthroughs. Those partnerships synthetic routes can offer benefits to the final remain to be answered around a policy are being developed by the Royal Society. question often defined alongside a partner. product such as cleaner fuels and polymers, thereby adding greater value. A number The commercial potential for specific uses of of companies are already exploring these carbon dioxide must be better understood, as areas. It is likely that research currently there is an opportunity for the UK to develop underway will lead to further optimisation leadership in sustainable manufacturing. and commercialisation of synthesis routes Demonstrators are required to test and new routes to transforming carbon technologies at scale and explore integration dioxide in greater volume. with existing processes to better understand the techno-economics which will help de-risk There are various estimates as to how much further investment. The Port Talbot steel works carbon dioxide can be used, depending on has made an offer to act in this capacity. the particular use balance. The thermodynamic stability of carbon dioxide means that The UK has a strong history of innovation many transformations require energy input. and commercial leadership in both catalysis The potential and limitations This energy must be low-carbon for such and materials critical technologies. On the of using carbon dioxide transformations to make sense, and further they basis of the current evidence this research Issued: May 2017 DES47801 must offer advantages over other deployment and development could enable substantial ISBN: 978-1-78252-267-6 of the resources involved. Life cycle analyses growth in the use of carbon dioxide. Exploiting of the thermodynamics and economics will be the widespread availability of carbon dioxide needed to understand the net contribution of would reduce UK dependence on imported The text of this work is licensed under the terms specific uses of carbon dioxide. hydrocarbons, increase the UK’s security of of the Creative Commons Attribution License supply in key chemicals and materials and drive which permits unrestricted use, provided the growing commercial opportunities in supply of original author and source are credited. carbon dioxide based products. The license is available at: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Images are not covered by this license. This report can be viewed online at royalsociety.org/low-carbon-energy-programme Cover image: © mikedabell THE POTENTIAL AND LIMITATIONS OF USING CARBON DIOXIDE 3 CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER TWO There are various estimates as to how much (‘moderate scenario’) carbon dioxide could be The case for using carbon dioxide carbon dioxide is already used globally, ranging used per year 13. These scenarios are equivalent from approximately 116Mt5 to 222Mt6 of carbon to approximately 0.1 – 2.2% of net total carbon dioxide per year. There are also various dioxide emissions in the UK (as shown in Table 1). Following commitments made in Paris 2030 and up to 40% by 20501. However, future estimates, ranging from approximately at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change according to the National Audit Office, 180Mt7 to 200Mt8 of carbon dioxide per year These estimates show that the scale of carbon Conference, the UK faces a challenge concerns were raised about the costs of to manufacture polymers and other chemical dioxide use is more limited than that which in deciding how it can transit to a low carbon carbon capture and storage2. This has products; and from approximately 1800Mt9 can potentially be stored with carbon capture future whilst pursuing an active industrial therefore raised interest in the potential of to 2000Mt10 of carbon dioxide per year to and storage. Nonetheless, using carbon strategy that creates growth and jobs capturing and then adding value to carbon manufacture synthetic fuels. These future dioxide to manufacture fuels, chemicals and in the short and medium term. Carbon dioxide, rather than storing it geologically. estimates suggest that approximately 0.5 – 0.6% materials could reduce the need to extract dioxide emissions are at the heart of the and 5 – 6% of global carbon dioxide emissions and use fossil fuels, although low carbon decarbonisation challenge. One option Carbon dioxide accounted for 81% of total UK could be used, respectively. However, there is sources of energy would be needed to drive 3 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is greenhouse gas emissions in 2015 . It is emitted one estimate that suggests approximately 15% the chemical conversion of the carbon dioxide to capture and store carbon dioxide. Carbon from a variety of diffuse and point sources (see of global emissions of carbon dioxide could in many cases, because of the thermodynamic capture and storage could store 15% of Table 1), and can be captured and processed be used per year by 203011. In terms of net stability of carbon dioxide. To provide a sense current UK carbon dioxide emissions by more readily when emitted from point sources. carbon dioxide reduction, technologies using of scale, over 90% of plastics produced are carbon dioxide are likely to account for less derived from fossil feedstocks which currently than 1% of global emissions reduction12. For net represents approximately 6% of global oil TABLE 1 emissions reduction, the carbon dioxide used to consumption sourced from crude oil that could 14 manufacture products must be recaptured at the increase to 20% by 2050 . UK carbon dioxide emissions by sector in 20154 end of product lifetimes, and that will affect the cost and energy balance. Emissions from Mt While these estimates relate to global carbon Fuel combustion for electricity generation and other 136.4 dioxide use, the UK government commissioned energy production sources. a study into the potential of industrial carbon Domestic aviation, road transport, railways, shipping, dioxide capture for storage or use in the UK. 118.8 fishing and aircraft support vehicles. The study considered the UK’s existing largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions from Combustion in commercial sectors, such as refrigeration industrial sources in the cement, chemicals, iron 68.6 and air conditioning. and steel, and oil refining sectors. It is these point sources, and not the dilute carbon dioxide in the Fuel combustion for heating and cooking, garden machinery, and 63.4 atmosphere, that are the focus of consideration fluorinated gases released from aerosols and metered dose inhalers. in this briefing. The study estimated that by 2025 Livestock, agricultural soils, stationary combustion sources approximately 8 – 9Mt (‘very high scenario’), 5.2 and off-road machinery. 3 – 4Mt (‘high scenario’) or 0.5 – 0.7Mt Waste disposed of to landfill sites, waste incineration, 0.3 and the treatment of waste water. 5. Otto A, Grube T, Schiebahn S, Stolten D. 2015 Closing the loop: captured CO2 as feedstock in the chemical industry. Energy. Environ. Sci. 8, 3283-3284. (doi:10.1039/c5ee02591e). Industry except for those associated with fuel combustion 12.1 6. Naims H. 2016 Economics of carbon dioxide capture and utilization: a supply and demand perspective. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 23, 22226-22241. such as cement, iron and steel production. (doi:10.1007/s11356-016-6810-2). 7. Olfe-Krautlein B, Naims H, Bruhn T, Lafunete A, Tobias M. 2014 IASS Fact Sheet 2/2014: CO2 as an asset? Potsdam: IASS (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies). 8. Op. cit., note 6. 9. Op. cit., note 7. 10. Op. cit., note 6. 1. Parliamentary Advisory Group on CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage). 2016 Lowest Cost Decarbonisation for the UK: The Critical Role of CCS. 11. The Global CO2 Initiative & CO2 Sciences. 2016 A Roadmap for the Global Implementation of Carbon Utilization Technologies. See See http://www.ccsassociation.org/news-and-events/reports-and-publications/parliamentary-advisory-group-on-ccs-report/ (accessed 22 February 2017). https://www.globalco2initiative.org/documents/CO2U_ICEF_Roadmap_FINAL_2016_12_07.pdf (accessed 23 February 2017). 2. NAO (National Audit Office). 2016 Sustainability in the Spending Review.