Decarbonisation Technology - February 2022 Issue

carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), is one of the most rapidly deployable technologies at their disposal, though CCUS is not without its challenges. Whether it is stored or repurposed for carbonating soft drinks, agriculture, or a myriad other uses, CO 2 must be purified of contaminants like sulphur and chlorides. Given the logistical challenges blue and green hydrogen production and CCUS processes involve, fuel producers need high-level digital solutions that they can easily integrate with preexisting operational data streams. Leading innovators have made significant investments in research and development (R&D) and capital projects to accommodate new processes and build the facilities required to reach their decarbonisation goals. Fast, optimised engineering cycles can only be accomplished with digital and smart approaches that use reliable data across the entire project life cycle. The latest technologies allow oil and gas companies to further explore this data package from the project phase during operations. The combination of the engineering digital twin – with its associated streaming analytics, events, and notifications – with the operational twin results in a sophisticated, integrated digital twin that empowers teams to make the best decisions.

O 2 and reduce and purify carbon byproducts to increase their use as feedstocks or products and use carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) where possible. In the case of the former, while hydrogen is hugely beneficial as a renewable fuel, traditional steam methane reforming (SMR) methods used to produce grey hydrogen create carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) as a byproduct. Grey hydrogen producers can choose to capture the CO 2 from the SMR to produce blue hydrogen. Another option many fuel producers are embracing is green hydrogen production, which uses renewable electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen through water electrolysis. However, not unlike blue hydrogen production, green hydrogen presents challenges. Companies must find a use for the oxygen byproduct, such as oxycombustion, where the produced oxygen is used to increase the efficiency of traditional combustion in furnaces, boilers, or fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) regenerators following required modification of such components as burners and associated safety systems. Also, green hydrogen requires separate storage and distribution assets, which adds cost and logistics challenges. Oil and gas enterprises must find other ways to reduce their carbon output as well. CCUS, or

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