Carbon Capture and Utilization – Part I

🔄 Keeping Carbon in the Loop: A Case for CCU

I attended a conference on Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) organized by the Swedish Consortium for Artificial Photosynthesis. It gave me a new perspective on the topic of CO₂ fixation. And it gave me new motivation ! Things are not as bad. Humanity is getting there. Where? To a carbon neutral future! To a livable future!

With this newly gained motivation I would like to outline the principles behind CCU for you in a short manner. My aim is to make the topic more graspable by giving more detail. That is what helped me understand the opportunities and challenges much better. Therefore, I will divide this topic into three different post.

1. Why do we need carbon capture and utilization? ▶️
2. What ways exist to capturing carbon? ⏭️
3. What ways exits to utilize the carbon, once its captured? ⏭️

Hopefully I am able to spark your interest!

So let’s start today with…

🤔 Why do we need CCU?

Look around you. All objects around you are either made of, or are produced with the help of fossil resources. The synthetic fibers in your clothes. The medicine you take. The device that you read this on. Even the food you eat. Your food? Yes! Producing it most often involves fertilizers. These fertilizers require lots of energy to be produced. Afterwards the produce needs to be shipped to your market. They need to be cooled, stored, and packaged. All of this requires fossil materials. In the modern life there is no way around fossil based materials.

This way of life is not sustainable. The constant use of fossil carbon sources will increase the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. In the active carbon cycle. This increase in carbon atoms in the carbon active carbon cycle warms the earth. It is threatening our way of life. Our only way of life for that matter.

We can’t afford to introduce more carbon in this cycle. We thus need to stop the consumption of fossil carbon sources. Keep it in the ground!

But how will we supply everyone with the products of everyday life that we are now so accustomed to? We need carbon for many things. This includes luxury items like phones and gaming consoles. Carbon is also needed for transport, medicine, and construction, just to name a few. Where will we get all that carbon from? We have to get from the air. We have to close the cycle. The umbrella term that summaries technologies that capture and successively use carbon are termed CCU.

☝ ️What about CCS?

You might asked yourself: But haven’t I read about something else? CCS? Yes! Carbon capture and storage (CCS) are technologies that’s capture carbon but instead of using it, they store it. Somewhere. Somehow. Which helps mitigate global warming by reducing the carbon in the atmosphere the same way CCU would help. But, CCS does not use the carbon for products. I think we need that carbon though! So let’s not store it underground, but make it into medicine, cloths and houses.

How exactly are we doing that? Stay tuned for my next posts!

Thank you!

📎 Resources

World Economic Forum’s blog post on: What is carbon capture and utilization?

International Energy Agency’s web page on: Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage

NASA’s explanation on: The carbon cycle