Why is CCU an important technology option for Europe?
Europe is a world leader when it comes to innovative and key enabling technologies. The chemical and biotechnological industries, and also the processing industry, are strong and major drivers of economic growth. CCU technologies will play a major role in the future when it comes to adapting to the changing raw material market – in the energy sector as well as in the chemical sector. CCU can deliver solutions to major challenges: To support the transition of the energy system towards fluctuating renewable energies, CCU technologies can provide the means for large-scale energy storage with minimal land use requirements. It can also support the transition of the transport sector by providing technologies for clean fuel production from non-fossil sources with an extremely low carbon footprint. A major contribution is, however, the provision of an alternative raw material base for the chemical industry. By developing CO2-based production routes for base chemicals, the dependency on fossil carbon sources of the chemical industry and all subsequent production routes will decrease. Furthermore, as an additional benefit, all these factors also help to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions significantly.
Many see CCU as an enabler to CCS, others as a pathway to new industrial opportunities. What is your opinion?
In Germany, there is no debate about CCS anymore. CCS has a very bad image in Germany and has basically been rejected by the German public and media. Hence, CCU is not seen to have any connection with CCS. On the European level however, CCS is still a topic. I believe though, that the two technologies do not have much in common. First of all, there are the costs: CCS is basically a non-profit technology, where every step is costly. CCU however has the potential to produce value-added products that have a market and can generate a profit. Secondly, the primary aim of CCS is the mitigation of climate change by storing large amounts of carbon dioxide underground. There is no inclination to add value to the captured carbon. In contrast, CCU’s major driver is to substitute fossil carbon as a raw material by recycling CO2. CCU and CCS are related technologies with regard to carbon capture, but CCU should not be limited as being just an enabler for CCS, as it can do so much more than simply deposit carbon dioxide underground.