Wed, Feb 12 2025 12 February, 2025

CO2 impurity a major risk for carbon capture projects: ICM Forum

Impurities in CO2 can corrode pipelines and storage facilities and potentially lead to huge liabilities for carbon capture projects.

A panel session at the ICM Forum 2024 in Pau, southwest France (Photo: Gas Outlook/Sophie Davies)

Lack of standardisation over the purity of CO2 is a major risk factor for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects which could significantly impact costs and viability for storage and transport operators, the Industrial Carbon Management Forum (ICM) heard.

Unlike gas and LNG, CO2 is a “highly remarkable gas” with changes in temperature and pressure — and therefore liquid or gaseous state — impacting levels of impurities including sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides, Ramin Moslemian, principal consultant in H2 & CCUS Infrastructures at Norway’s DNV, said at the event in Pau, France, on Thursday.

With the responsibility of managing the purity of the CO2 injected currently falling onto the emitters at the injection point, this can greatly impact costs for stakeholders, such as cement and steel companies.

Reaching a standardisation of CO2 specifications is “an urgent issue” amid a need to “find a balance” between demands for high purity CO2 injected and the need to manage costs and risks, Rob van der Meer, industrial policy director at cement lobby group Cembureau and in charge of the ICM working group on standardisation said.

He also noted that CO2 purification increases energy consumption, a major concern for emitters, which is fuelling a debate over the suitability of pipelines as a means to transport CO2.

Speakers at the forum — previously known as the CCUS Forum — said one option could be the use of smaller pipelines for certain emitters, for example in remote areas, with longer pipelines for other types of users, and varying levels of purity of the CO2 injected.

“Standardisation is essential to reduce costs,” agreed Martijn Smit, vice president of stakeholder management and marketing in Low Carbon Solutions at Norway’s Equinor.

Equinor, together with Shell and TotalEnergies, is behind the Northern Lights project, Norway’s first licence for CO2 storage on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

The facility was inaugurated last month by the Norwegian government and targets 1.5 million tonnes/year of CO2 storage in the initial phase.

While standardisation is not a challenge from a technical standpoint, it is an issue from a commercial standpoint as it impacts costs, he said.

Meanwhile, despite the increased number of announced ICM projects, CO2 capacity is off-track to meet 2040 and 2050 targets, Drazen Tamara, a spatial analyst at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, said.

Projects are facing delays and “significantly increased” infrastructure costs, amid concerns regarding the availability of CO2 storage capacity, he said.

He noted that CO2 transport infrastructure needs might be revised up if announced CO2 storage capacity turns out to be overestimated.

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