Carbon Capture Plants: CCUS Companies & Projects

There were just 19 carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) facilities in operation worldwide in 2019.¹ Collectively, carbon capture plants can capture and store around 40 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year.² This is far below the level required by 2030 to stay on a 1.5°C increase climate trajectory.³

Carbon capture and storage

The International Energy Agency, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other groups estimate that CCUS must mitigate 1.5 gigatonnes per annum to limit global warming to 1.5°C. For this to happen, global carbon capture and storage capacity must increase by a factor of 35 in less than a decade.⁴

Past examples of plants that use carbon capture technology do not imbue hope that this can be achieved. Many ambitious projects have collapsed due to spiralling costs, regulatory issues and volatility in the energy market.⁵ Those that have reached completion often fail to deliver climate mitigation as they repurpose captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.

CCUS and climate change

Some people regard carbon capture technology as a potential solution to climate change. Many argue that it is vital for meeting climate goals.⁶ Carbon capture technology prevents CO2 produced by power plants or industrial processes from entering the atmosphere.⁷ It thereby permits the continual burning of fossil fuels without increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2.⁸ 

This is important because CO2 is one of the principal greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.⁹ Reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions and achieving a climate-neutral world by 2050 is central to the Paris Agreement. This was signed by 196 international Parties.¹⁰ Proponents of CCUS maintain that reaching these targets will require at least some CCUS mitigation.¹¹ 

However, large-scale CCUS projects are expensive. Also, they typically require six to ten years from conception to completion.¹² Previous examples show that delays and setbacks are common.¹³ Currently, there are a mere 20 projects under development worldwide.¹⁴ The potential for carbon capture technology plants to meet sufficient capacity to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants and industry in order to help prevent global warming by 2030 appears slim. 

The future of carbon capture plants and carbon dioxide 

The principal reason for investing in carbon capture technology plants is to prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. Many put their hopes in this nascent technology, since it promises to achieve 14 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed by 2050.¹⁵ 

But, with just 20 projects in the pipeline and typical project timelines of six to ten years, it is doubtful that CCUS will capture significant quantities of CO2 by 2030.¹⁶ Moreover, 80 per cent of the carbon dioxide captured today is used for enhanced oil recovery.¹⁷

Combustion of oil can only add to CO2 emissions and raise the chances of a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures. Carbon capture remains an uncertain technology that is more likely to do more harm than good in combatting climate change.

Carbon capture plants

Southern Company

Southern Company, one of the largest utility companies in the US,¹⁸ was behind the world’s most ambitious carbon capture plant.¹⁹ Kemper County Energy Facility intended to use CCS to produce energy from ‘clean coal’.²⁰ The project began in 2010. It was meant to bring some 12,000 jobs to Mississippi and serve as evidence that burning coal can be ‘clean’.²¹ However, three years behind schedule and USD $4 billion over its projected budget, Kemper’s CCS portion was cancelled in 2017.²²

Southern Company has set itself a net-zero carbon operations goal by 2050.²³ To do this, they are growing investment in renewable energy and improving their grid, among other initiatives.²⁴ They have also announced that they would consider another carbon capture project at Kemper.²⁵ The aim would be to capture up to 900 million tons of CO2 emissions from three Southern Company power plants and store them underground.²⁶ 

NRG’s Petra Nova plant

Petra Nova is a coal-fired power plant in Texas. It was one of just two operating power plants with CCUS in the world.²⁷ The CCUS facilities began operating in December 2016 and captured 92.4 per cent of the CO2 from the slipstream of flue gas processed.²⁸ However, Petra Nova placed its carbon capture capabilities on hold in May 2020, though there is a possibility of bringing them back online at a later date.²⁹

The cancellation of Petra Nova’s carbon capture facility highlights a key issue with CCUS projects. The power plant did not store the carbon captured.³⁰ Instead, Petra Nova relied on employing its captured carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery.³¹ This process uses the gas to recover hard to reach crude to extend an oil field’s productive life.³² When burned, this fossil fuel releases vast quantities of carbon. As a result, it is responsible for about one-third of the world’s CO2 emissions.³³ 

The Petra Nova plant’s carbon capture technology was mothballed because of fluctuating oil prices in the wake of the COVID-19-induced collapse in demand.³⁴ They made it uneconomical to continue operating the plant’s CCUS facilities.³⁵

The world’s largest installation of CO2 capture on a power plant was forced to close after just three years. This demonstrates the uncertainty about the future of this carbon capture technology. The fact that the facility was not storing its carbon safely underground, but was instead using it to obtain inaccessible oil, flies in the face of the argument that CCUS is a viable climate change solution. 

Century Plant, Texas

Century Plant is a natural gas processing facility in Texas with the largest CO2 separation capacity in the world.³⁶ It can capture up to 8.4 Mt of CO2 per year.³⁷ However, in 2016, just five Mt of carbon dioxide was being captured.³⁸

Like Petra Nova, Century Plant recovers some of the costs of operating its CCUS facilities by using the captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.³⁹ They transport carbon dioxide to an industrial hub in Denver City using a 160-kilometre pipeline.⁴⁰ It is then used in the Permian Basin oil fields to develop approximately 500 million barrels of reserves.⁴¹

By using captured CO2 from burning natural gas to produce more fossil fuels, the plant’s climate change mitigation is therefore tenuous.

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