What challenge is tackling this project ?
Anthropic greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) are responsible for the additional greenhouse effect that disrupts climate, water cycles, biodiversity and the resilience of human societies. GHG emissions have been multiplied by 216 in 170 years, reaching 49 billions t CO2 equivalent in 2018 1. If the world keeps developing as “business as usual” it leads us to a warming trajectory of +4.1°C to +4.8°C.
The industry sector alone is responsible for 30% of the global CO2 emissions 2 . The vast majority (80%) of these emissions is caused by the energy use of this industry, as this sector still heavily relies on fossil fuels. The rest of the emissions (20%) are caused by the chemical reactions occurring during specific industrial processes like the clinker formation needed for cement production. 91% of those emissions being CO2 emissions, CO2 is the main GHG on which industry must focus. Industrial production is expected to keep increasing over the next 20 years. In fact, industrial energy consumption increased an average 1% per year between 2010 and 2019. The industry sector’s energy mix has remained relatively unchanged overall since 2010 : the fossil fuel share of the energy mix decreased from 73% to 68% while electricity increased from 18% to 22%.
The contribution of all sectors to environmental transition is obviously necessary, but as industry is one of the most emissive and long-term sectors demanding a lot of R&D, it is one of our priorities. Industrial infrastructures have a long lifespan and necessite substantial investments. Hence, choices that are made in the next few years have consequences for the next 20 to 50 years. The IPCC published its 6th Assessment Report3 urging a profound decrease of the global GHG emissions and the combination of all the solutions at hand to reduce the emissions : sobriety, switch to low carbon energy, energy efficiency and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). But today, the CCS technologies are immature and still expensive. The International Energy Agency estimates a global capture potential in 2020 of 40 millions t CO2, in 2030 the target is of 1,7 billion t CO2 to respect the goal of global carbon neutrality4.
What solution does Carboneo provide ?
Carboneo provides such a solution of carbon capture, allowing industrial sites to lower their carbon footprint. They make available a technology allowing the electrolytic treatment of industrial fumes with a high CO2 concentration. The electrodes are designed from relatively abundant metals (iron and cobalt). In addition to reducing the carbon footprint of the plant, the electrolysis reaction transforms CO2 into high purity CO and O2, two gases used in industrial processes. This solution therefore creates a carbon cycle within the plant and makes it financially worthwhile to implement the solution, which partially replaces the gas supply.
In the long term, Carboneo also plans to implement vertuous CO2, CO and O2 networks so that plants can become interconnected and exchange the CO and O2 byproducts.
Why is this project important ? What do we like about it?
The climate emergency is a major environmental challenge for the coming years. The inflection of the GHG emissions curve must take place in the next 3 years. Capture and storage solutions are not a substitute for reduction efforts but are an essential lever for achieving global carbon neutrality. It was important for the Cardashift’s team to have such a project in our first batch.
Carboneo is a captivating project tackling the two major obstacles to carbon capture scalability : the fact that those solutions are often very energy intensive and that very few of them are economically attractive.
What are your main concerns? In your opinion, which external negativities are keys to control for this project?
Carboneo has inherent external negativities to control to make sure it provides an overall positive environmental impact.
First, to transform CO2, Carboneo uses an electrolysis process requiring electricity. Therefore the carbon intensity of the electricity mix is critical for the installation to be profitable from an environmental point of view. It wouldn’t make sense that the electricity supply of Carboneo’s solutions emits more CO2 than the capture potential in the industrial site. As a result Carboneo’s solution cannot be used in countries with a carbon intensive electricity mix (ie relying heavily on coal, oil or natural gas such as India or Poland). It is one of the reason why Carboneo choses France as a starting point.
Carboneo wants to minimize the environmental footprint of their solution. Currently at the prototype stage, Carboneo is working on optimizing their efficiency trying to increase the ratio CO2 capture / size of the electrodes in order to reduce the amount of raw materials used. This efficiency would also allow Carboneo to develop an installation compatible with many factories and increase their scalability potential.
Finally, as stated previously, carbon capture is a major lever of decarbonation but it doesn’t prevent from actively reducing the carbon footprint of an industry. Carboneo is one of the pieces of the solution.
Any follow-up questions? Want to talk directly to the founders?
Please, join their dedicated Discord channel: https://discord.gg/gqpQka2Y6X
About Cardashift
Cardashift enables citizens-investors to build the world of tomorrow.
Our first product is a community-run launchpad that raises funds, builds and accelerates startups that are solving social and environmental issues. Cardashift is based on Cardano, the blockchain platform for change-makers, innovators, and visionaries.
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