“To stir the air”: to speak or to act a lot only to obtain ultimately only insignificant results, says the dictionary. TO Hellisheidi, in Iceland,
Climeworks works to give another meaning to this expression.
On September 8, the Swiss start-up launched “Orca”, a CO2 capture plant. Its twelve fans suck the ambient air into a collector, where the carbon dioxide it contains is captured by a filter. Once the latter is filled with CO2, the collector closes and the temperature is increased between 80 and 100 ° C, to obtain the gas in ultra-concentrated form. In association with
Carbfix, an Icelandic carbon storage project, Climeworks recovers the CO2, mixes it with water before injecting it at a depth of 1,000 meters, a few steps away, into layers of basalt, where it will turn into rock after two years.
Already 42 million tonnes of CO2 removed in factory fumes
Orca will thus remove 4,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere per year, according to Climeworks projections. CO2 capture and storage (CCS) are not a new process. Florence Delprat-Jannaud, CO2 coordinator at
IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN), speaks of several decades of research in this field and lists 65 major projects underway around the world, 26 of which are operational. “And that only takes into account projects for capturing CO2 from factory smoke,” she explains.
It is the most used technique to date, the one in which heavyweights in the industry, including French.Because the most relevant? “In these fumes, the CO2 is relatively concentrated, of the order of 20% for example for an iron and steel site,” continues Florence Delprat-Jannaud. However, the higher this concentration, the easier the capture of CO2 will be and will require, in any case, less energy. “
These 26 CO2 capture units in factory flue gas prevent the release into the atmosphere of around 42 million tonnes of CO2 per year. “In the United States, a large part is used for assisted hydrocarbon production, explains Florence Delprat-Jannaud. The CO2 is injected into the oil and gas wells in operation to maintain the level of pressure necessary to bring up the hydrocarbons and facilitate their recovery. CO2, on the other hand, remains permanently stored underground. In Europe, it is simply stored. ”
0.04% CO2 only in the ambient air
Climeworks is exploring another avenue: that of direct capture of CO2 in the air (DAC), where its concentration is only 0.04%. She’s not the only one. Florence Delprat-Jannaud quotes Americans Global Thermostat and the Canadians of
Carbon Engineering. And in Hellisheidi, Climeworks is not at its first attempt either. Founded in 2009, the Swiss start-up already has 14 CO2 collectors across the EU, in Oman, but also already in Iceland. “In total, they allow us to capture around 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, 900 of which just
Hinwil, near Zurich, our most significant factory so far, ”explains Julie Gosalvez, marketing and communications director of the company.
With Orca, Climeworks is therefore taking a first step since it will capture four times more CO2 than it did until then. But 4,000 tons, that’s barely a drop of water compared to 33 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent (eqCO2) that the energy sector is expected to emit in 2021, according to
the International Energy Agency (IEA). It is therefore always the same question that comes up when we approach the capture and storage of carbon, whether in the open air or in factory fumes: can it be part of the solutions to combat global warming?
“We will then need direct capture in the air”
In a 2008 report, the NGO Greenpeace described her as a
“Cure worse than the disease”, pointing to its cost, the high energy consumption it requires or the fact that it would never be ready in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Thirteen years later
in a note published in July, Ademe always describes CCS as a complex solution, again evoking its technical, geological, regulatory and social constraints. Its implementation should be considered “as the last step in a decarbonisation strategy starting with more mature and efficient actions (energy efficiency and renewable energies) and remains a risky bet”, she writes, not speaking , in his opinion, that of CCS from factory fumes.
The challenges are even greater for direct air capture, both for energy consumption and cost (see box). Climeworks nevertheless remains sure of its relevance. “Achieving carbon neutrality will require drastically reducing our emissions,” agrees Julie Gosalvez. But that will not be enough. A share – between 10 and 20% – is inevitable, at least today. We will then need direct capture in the air, both to remove the CO2 that we have already emitted, and that part that we will continue to emit. “
And then the direct capture in the air has advantages. Starting with that of being able to get rid of factory smoke. “You can install a DAC site anywhere, especially where the geological conditions are the most interesting for storing CO2 and / or where there is an abundant and cheap source of renewable energy”, points out Florence Delprat- Jannaud. Hellisheidi ticks both criteria, Orca being supplied with energy by a geothermal power station nearby. “Over the total life cycle of the plant (capture and storage, construction of the site, etc.), we only emit 10% of the CO2 that we capture”, assures Julie Gosalvez. She gives another good point to her Icelandic site: “that of not being established on arable land and taking up little space on the ground – 1,700 m² in total – after having worked a lot in recent years to miniaturize the processes” , she adds.
A technology with great opportunities for innovation?
Is this an advantage compared to the capture of CO2 through the planting of forests? “We must not oppose the solutions, they all have advantages and limits, and the climate emergency means that we cannot afford the luxury of not exploring them all,” replied Florence Delprat-Jannaud. Carbon capture and storage has a rather good rating with the IEA. ” In its global roadmap to decarbonize energy, published in May, it estimates that the CCS will capture 7.6 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2050, including 5.2 from factory smoke and 2.4 from the atmosphere through various processes, including that developed by Climeworks, specifies the CO2 coordinator of IFPEN. It may seem ambitious and by then we will have to remove technological barriers, find the right economic models and involve society in the choices. But it is not impossible. The processes have already advanced a lot in recent years. The IEA always ranks the CSC among the sectors where it sees the greatest opportunities for innovation.
Climeworks is working on it. “The idea is to open a new factory in the next few years capable of removing 40,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,” explains Julie Gosalvez. And we hope to capture one million tonnes each year, across all of our sites, by 2030. ”
What economic model for Orca?
This is another peculiarity of the plant that Climeworks has just opened in Iceland compared to the fourteen other sites that the Swiss start-up already operates. “Until now, the CO2 we capture was sold for recycling,” explains Julie Gonzalez, Marketing and Communications Director of Climeworks. Coca-Cola uses it for example to carbonate the water of its Swiss brand Valser. It is also used as a fertilizer for greenhouse agricultural producers, and another of our clients manufactures with synthetic diamonds. “
In Hellisheidi, Climeworks will no longer sell the CO2 it collects since it will store it directly underground. This implies finding another economic model. The start-up then offers companies and individuals to finance these CO2 capture and storage operations. For the latter, she offers three subscriptions, whose first “Explorer” consists of paying 7 euros per month to remove 85 kg of CO2 per year. “We comptons 8.9000 private subscribers ”, specifies Julie Gonzalez, more discreet on the other hand on the number of companies and the prices which are practiced to them. “We already have several large clients like Microsoft, The Economist Group, Swiss RE…”, she says.
Climeworks also does not give the cost of CO2 capture and storage at Orca. But if we look at the subscriptions offered to individuals, we are around 1,000 euros per tonne of CO2 withdrawn. “An award that reflects our technological stage today,” specifies Julie Gonzalez. We are at the very beginning and we have every hope, once the technology has matured and the price of CO2 has been better valued, to drop to around $ 200 per tonne. “