[ News ]Taking carbon capture and storage a step further

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Emirates Steel in the UAE is taking part in an innovative and ambitious project whose aim is to capture, reuse and store 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from its steel plant annually.  The project is scheduled to be completed by 2016. The goal is to produce steel with lower carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere by capturing the CO2 produced in the iron and steel making process, injecting it into existing oil fields for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and storing it at the same time.

The CO2 supply stream from the Emirates Steel plant, contains approximately 90% CO2, and will be transported to a compression and dehydration facility at the storage site in Mussafah. The CO2 will be compressed creating CO2 with a purity of 98%, then transported through 50km of pipeline network, and finally injected into an onshore oil field, operated by Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations.

This project was made possible thanks to the partnership between Masdar, the Abu Dhabi national clean energy conglomerate, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The joint venture was signed on 10 November 2013 and will consist of three key components:

• CO2 will be captured onsite at Emirates Steel, the UAE's largest steelmaking facility.
• The CO2 will then be compressed and transported along the 50km pipeline to oil fields operated by ADNOC.
• ADNOC will inject the CO2 into oil fields to enhance oil recovery, while storing the injected CO2 underground. 

The UAE has traditionally used hydrocarbon gases in some of the Abu Dhabi fields to enhance oil production. However, with the rise in energy demand, this Carbon Capture Usage and Storage project will allow the UAE to preserve its natural gas for domestic electricity generation.

The Emirates Steel Carbon Capture and Storage project complements other technologies to reduce carbon emissions currently being researched at a global scale:

• ULCOS (Europe)
  ULCOS is the EU-sponsored Ultra-Low CO2 Steel-making project made up of a consortium of 48 European companies and organisations from 15 European countries. ULCOS is working on projects which ultimately could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from steel production by at least 50%. The most promising breakthrough technology been researched by ULCOS is the HIsarna process which is running in a pilot operation at the Tata Steel site in IJmuiden in the Netherlands. In this process fairly pure CO2 is produced which can be used for carbon capture and storage with little further cleaning necessary. The expected reduction in CO2 intensity per tonne of crude steel produced is 20% – 25%. To be able to be effective, this process will also rely on CCS to realise the 50% reduction in CO2 intensity or more.
   
• COURSE-50 (Japan)
  This programme is strongly supported by the Japanese government as they are investing in the transportation, reuse and storage of the CO2. A number of projects have been established for a long period of time especially on storing CO2 in rock structure one or two kilometers underground. The sites have been significantly tested in recent earthquakes and no loss of CO2 has been detected by the sensors placed on the surface.
   
• POSCO (South Korea)
  In Korea, POSCO runs its own programme to look at the adaptation of CCS to the Finex smelting reduction processes. They are also completing trials on capturing CO2 from a blast furnace which uses similar technology than that being researched by the ULCOS programme.
   
• China Steel Corporation with Taiwan CCS Alliance coordination (Taiwan)
  Taiwan CCS Alliance is composed of 11 companies and organisations amongst which worldsteel member company, China Steel Corporation (CSC) is a participant. The Alliance is currently focusing their research activities on two main technologies: the oxy fuel burner technology which aims at purifying CO2 by burning without nitrogen content; and the chemical absorption pilot plant which seeks to further decrease energy consumption per unit of CO2 captured. Additionally academic cooperation projects in CSC include BOF slag carbonation and microalgae carbon fixation.
   
• BlueScope Steel and OneSteel with CSIRO coordination (Australia)
  In Australia, CSIRO is working with BlueScope and OneSteel on two significant projects aimed at cutting CO2 emissions: biomass, which uses renewable carbon derived from biomass in steel manufacturing and heat recovery from molten slags through dry granulation, which captures the waste heat released from slag cooling, thus reducing CO2 emissions. These programmes have received large support from the Australian government.

Some of these R&D projects potentially can reduce CO2 emissions by more than 50%. Research is now focused on feasibility at various levels of production, from laboratory work to pilot plant development, demonstrators and eventually commercial implementation. However, initial R&D investment of several million dollars will be required for these projects to come to completion.

Further cuts in CO2 emissions will be achieved in future decades through the increased use of the R&D technologies currently funded, but also through the increased recycling of scrap and its use in the production process. According to the Global CCS Institute, around 70%-80% of emissions can be avoided by using scrap in steel production, avoiding the need for using carbon to reduce iron ore and by only using melted scrap. However, scrap and scrap availability is dependent on the cost of recovery and usually matches the economic level of iron-ore and coal requirement.  

The International Energy Agency 2013 roadmap demonstrates that CCS is an integral part of any lowest-cost mitigation scenario. The total CO2 capture and storage rate must grow from the thousands of tonnes captured in 2013 to billions of tonnes of CO2 in 2050 in order to address the emissions reduction challenge (2DS scenario).

The steel industry is fully aware of the need for implementing technological solutions to reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere through CCS or other forms of breakthrough technologies and will continue to concentrate its efforts on this goal for decades to come.