Decarbonisation Technology May 2022 Issue

Commercial CCS facilities in operation and construction Commercial CCS facilities in development Operation suspended

United Kingdon and Ireland

North America

Rotterdam and Antwerp

Rotterdam

Aberdeen

Edmonton

Chicago

Dublin

London

Houston

Antwerp

Figure 2 CCS projects being deployed by region

Figure 1 ), bringing the total of projects to 135 CCS facilities in various stages of development (Global CCS Institute, 2021). With financial investments being made to support this scale- up, will the returns be worth it? The impact so far suggests so. CCS has mitigated over 300 million tonnes of CO₂ since the technology came into effect, abating over 40 million tonnes per year. The versatile technology provides deep decarbonisation in energy-intensive sectors by capturing CO₂ – typically from a point source at an industrial facility – and storing it below the earth’s surface before it can reach the atmosphere. While its deployment has been largely associated with the energy sector, CCS’s application is flexible and is being

applied by cement, chemical, iron, and steel plants to decarbonise production. Across Europe and North America, the urgency of addressing climate change and scaling up CCS is evident. With 40 facilities in operation and under development, the US has remained the global CCS front runner for decades (see Figure 2 ), which can largely be attributed to long-standing supportive policy development, including a CCS-specific tax benefit that has driven CCS investment. In Europe, we also see CCS ambitions on the rise. With targets to reach climate neutrality by 2050 cemented by the European Green Deal, the European Commission announced targets to cut emissions by 55% by 2030 (European

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