– A promising year for CCS

We believe that the coming year will be at least as developing and interesting, says Muhammad Ismail Shah, Managing Director of Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM).

He took over as manager in February and has led the company through a year characterized by high activity at the test facility, frequent participation in conferences and professional events, as well as celebration of TCM’s 10-year anniversary.

– In 2022, we have again been able to meet customers, partners and governmental officials face to face. It is important, both to explain what plans we have for development at TCM and to form an impression of what the industry in Norway and abroad is thinking and doing to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. My overall impression is that both the ability and willingness to invest in CCS as an important part of the climate solution has increased considerably, while at the same time the desire and need for cost-effective technologies to make this happen is very great. At TCM, we will contribute to this by carrying out a number of campaigns for testing and verification of both mature and complete new technologies for capturing CO₂.

70 CCS-projects in Europe

This autumn, TCM has, among other things, participated in the CCS conference in Bremen, Germany. Here it emerged that 70 CCS projects are currently in process in Europe in various phases – more than twice as many as the previous year. The EU’s innovation fund is investing in eleven projects, and in the UK four projects, which are expected to capture and store 20 – 30 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, will receive 1 billion pund in support by 2030. In the US, the Biden administration has significantly expanded government support, where more than 12 billions of dollars are earmarked for various programs. Japan and China also provide extensive support to companies promoting CCS technology. In total, more than 20 countries worldwide now have CCS projects underway.

Longship shows the way

­– In Norway, construction of facilities at Heidelberg Materials’s cement factory in Brevik is underway. Aker Carbon Capture delivers capture technology which has been tested at TCM. Hafslund Oslo Celsio has started building its carbon capture plant in connection with the waste and heat recovery plant at Klemetsrud in Oslo, with capture technology from Shell Cansolv. This has also been tested by us at TCM. The Longship project shows the way, also because it includes ground-breaking solutions for the transport and storage of CO₂ on the Norwegian continental shelf. The fact that Yara has this year entered into an agreement with Northern Lights to store 800,000 tonnes of  CO₂ annually from a factory in the Netherlands on commercial terms – without governmental subsidies – shows that the industry is not only aware of its climate responsibility, but also sees its benefits in investing in CCS rather than having to pay dearly for its emissions.

Shell Cansolv to test for the third time

American RTI International ended earlier this autumn a six-month test campaign at the amine plant at Mongstad. After the test at TCM, the company has entered into a partnership with Schlumberger, which will commercialize RTI’s NAS technology. A new test campaign at the amine plant is now being prepared.

– It is Shell Cansolv that is coming to TCM for the third time to test a new solvent the company has developed. The test starts in the new year and the campaign will run throughout the spring. This shows that suppliers of mature technologies for use in imminent CCS projects still need to qualify such technologies for commercial use. There is fierce competition among the suppliers to offer solvents that provide the greatest possible CO₂ capture, low emissions and at the lowest possible price, and to document this they must carry out tests under almost full-scale conditions with flue gas with a CO₂ content that can be adjusted from about approx. 1 percent up to 20 percent. In this way, the test is adapted to the conditions in which the technology is intended to be used, for example in connection with the production of cement or steel, or for handling emissions from the incineration of waste. We are in dialogue with several recognized technology companies, several of whom have the same needs as Shell Cansolv, and who want to carry out tests with us during the coming year.

– This shows that TCM is still a necessary stop for the development of commercial solutions for capturing CO₂. We don’t believe that this need will diminish as carbon capture and storage now becomes an industry in large parts of the world. There will continuously be room for improvements to the technologies based on the experience gained in the projects, and for that the suppliers need a large test facility like ours and the expertise we offer to be able to test what works best, without being disturbed.

New catch technologies are coming

At the same time as the refinement of «ready-to-cook» technologies for capturing CO₂ from large point emissions in industry, there is a lot of activity going on to develop next-generation capture technologies, including with membranes and sorbents.

– This year, TCM has hosted two American companies, MTR and TDA Research, who have tested their technologies in our area for new trapping technologies, says Shah.

– In 2023, the plan is to carry out test of technologies that are part of a research project financed by the EU, with SINTEF Energi and TCM as assistants. We also get indentation from the company InnoSepra, which is developing a technology with support from the US Department of Energy. In other words, the activity level at TCM is very high – and we like it!