Are you a safeguard facility attempting to address your emissions target?

Essential material pillars in a modern society are steel, cement, fertiliser, alumina, chemicals, and plastics – these are some of the hard-to-abate sectors that are very challenging to decarbonise. The federal government’s Safeguard Mechanism legislation targets 220+ facilities that emit more than 100,000t of CO₂ per year. These facilities will have to reduce baseline emissions by 5pc per year.

Australian industrial emissions have several challenges: maintaining capacity, increasing sovereign capability, and supporting jobs whilst reducing emissions due the Safeguard Mechanism legislation.  Most industries are focusing their efforts on technology changes supported by renewable energy or future fuels to drive their long-range planning.

 Some are considering carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an option in their portfolio of decarbonisation pathways. This is aligned with international practice, especially in Europe where resolving conflicting priorities of maintaining industry and reducing emissions has been partially dealt with in the hard-to-abate sector with CCS hubs that gather CO₂ from industrial sources, transport them and then store them permanently underground; projects such as Northern Lights in Norway.

CO2Tech is proposing a fast paced, screening study with a consortium approach to reduce costs and build collaboration amongst regional industries. This is a scoping proposal that can be developed with prospective clients’ specific needs if required, this study could be the first phase of a techno-economic investigation that may lead to more detailed studies subject to outcomes.

Above: Map of emissions hubs and storage projects.