It is hard to visualise the scientific unit of measurement that counts the number of units of one substance per one million units of another (ppm). People at education platform TED-Ed have tried a number of ways:
One key from 11,363 pianos
A granule of sugar from 273 cubes
One second in 11.5 days
One kernel from 1,250 ears of corn
Therefore, seeing the measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) by Scripps Institution of Oceanography reach 416.94 ppm on March 17 compared with 315 ppm 60 years ago can seem a little insignificant for most people.
After all, pre-industrialisation rates – about 250 years ago, were estimated at 250 ppm (though in ice ages it might have been as low at 160 ppm).
But as CO₂ is a so-called greenhouse gas, along with methane, the rise in concentration leads to warmer average temperatures and often more extreme climatic conditions.
And while prevention is better than cure, capturing and fixing carbon already released to tackle the prior generations’ emissions is hard. Carbon dioxide is diffuse even from an industrial flue let alone as a handful of molecules of a specific sort out of millions floating in the air. Capturing it, however, is the job in hand for those in the energy and broader industrial sectors.
Carbon focus
The Paris Accord signed in 2016 expected countries to reduce their CO₂ emissions and try to limit global temperature rises this century to less than two degrees Celsius (2 °C) and ideally below 1.5°C pre-industrialisation levels.
The follow-up COP26 summit in the UK in November will probably set further conditions, to get to net-zero carbon emissions, as countries’ voluntary contributions are not likely to achieve the sub-2°C target.
A member of the Global Energy Council and head of a corporate venturing unit added: “Annually, roughly eight gigatonnes of carbon are emitted into the atmosphere through the combustion of fossil fuel. Roughly two gigatonnes are emitted through deforestation and agriculture.
“Roughly 60% of these emissions are absorbed by the oceans, the biosphere and topsoil, while the other 40% accumulates in the atmosphere, increasing CO2 concentrations with roughly 2 ppm per annum at the current rate of emission. In order to stay within the target of maximum 2 0C warming by 2021, set by the Paris climate accord, mankind has no other option but to:
- speed up the transition to more sustainable forms of energy (electrification, second-generation biofuels, hydrogen and other dense energy carriers for harder to abate sectors of industry);
- reconsider nuclear as an option for densely populated areas (where the low energy density in Watts per m2 of renewable generation remains an issue);
- take CO₂ out of the atmosphere at a massive scale.
“As a Global Energy Council, let us make sure we are aligned on first principles, for example, what is the role of venturing in these domains and where does it make sense for us to collaborate to speed up the commercialisation of new technologies and business models that address these challenges?”
Even if emission-less energy technologies, such as wind, solar and nuclear, were built immediately it would still take until 2050 to retire much of the CO₂-emitting infrastructure from existing coal, oil and gas power plants.
Hence the increased focus on carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) rather than relying on reducing emissions.
But a global climate-policy simulator called En-Roads, developed by Climate Interactive, Ventana System, and MIT Sloan School of Management, found most CCUS policies and technologies take too long to stop emissions now. This requires more investment. There are several other carbon-removal approaches that include capturing CO₂ directly from air, locking carbon in soils or underground, and accelerated mineral formation. Add these to the mix, and potential warming by 2100 comes down by half a degree Celsius.
This En-Roads scenario is bullish on carbon-removal technology but within limits as it requires a systems-wide overhaul of the energy industry and carbon prices.
Recent analysis from Rhodium Group said carbon capture could create 100,000 or more jobs per year and offer a $200bn-plus investment opportunity over the next 15 years.
As Ma Xin, managing director at France-listed energy group Total’s corporate venturing unit, said: “Total’s starting point is that while wind and solar will continued to advance and get cheaper, and coal will be significantly reduced, oil and gas will remain important parts of an energy system, including biogas and biofuel.
“Allied to lengthy conversion to say hydrogen for heavy industry, cement, chemicals, transport (aviation and heavy duty), then CCUS and natural-based solutions become vital to lower emissions. Energy storage, notably lithium, will play an important role in the energy system to ensure the incorporation of impermanency wind and solar. Also, carbon price will be critical as well as energy efficiency.”
Taking action
Mevin Kistnassamy, partner at Blue Pelican Capital, a climate innovation fund, and former co-founder of the corporate venture capital arm of offshore energy services company Subsea 7, agreed a system-wide approach needed to be taken. He said: “There is too much evangelism of cleantech without a full evaluation of emissions. In China, coal plus CCS might be better than liquified natural gas plus CCS once the emissions cost of production, liquefaction and transportation are taken into account.
“This is not a sexy message to ecologists, but an important one, as in absolute terms oil and gas use is not going to change much at 100 million barrels of oil equivalent per day up to 2040 and so emissions will be as much. We need to recognise that change will not be as fast as needed and we also need to invest to mitigate continued fossil fuel use. CCS is an evolution rather than revolution, as in most cases, you need a lot of energy to reduce a little CO₂.
“Given the need for efficiency in the process, startups’ niche technologies in purification of CO₂, membranes for capturing carbon and logistics to take it to pipelines can all help corporations which are good at deploying at scale.”
But VCs generally dislike startups that bring a combination of regulatory, market and technology risks in a niche area. And so there has been relatively little venture investment in CCUS outside corporate venturing since the cleantech bubble in the mid-2000s burst with the global financial crisis in 2008-09.
VC-backed carbon capture startups took in $336.5m last year to set a modest record, according to Pitchbook data. Much of that investment was driven by non-traditional investors – oil companies, governments and others, which participated in about half of the near-30 deals, Pitchbook tracked. Traditional, or independent, VC firms invested in about a third.
The more comprehensive i3 database from Cleantech Group identified a record first quarter of deal activity in CCUS with 15 deals worth a disclosed, aggregate $251m.
But for startups to scale their technology up from pilot to industrial plants requires the main state and corporate incumbents to invest resources and money in expectation of strategic as well as potential financial returns.
When asked if entrepreneurs in CCUS could help corporations given the challenges, Barbara Burger, vice-president for innovation and president of Technology Ventures at Chevron, said: “Bring it on. Decarbonising the energy system from generation to consumption is a hard problem.
“CCUS has been around for decades, but there are probably only 20 projects around the world because it is hard to scale and there have been limited policy incentives to invest in lower-carbon innovation.
“CCUS is needed in energy and other industries to help meet the global aims of the Paris agreement. Chevron supports the Paris agreement, and we and our portfolio companies in this area, such as Svante, Carbon Engineering and Carbon Clean, are working to drive innovation to overcome the challenges of scaling negative emissions technologies driving demand for them. Now we need 100 more Svantes and Carbon Engineerings.”
Carbon Engineering’s pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia
The other main energy companies have almost all launched significant projects to catch and bury carbon, while heavy emitters, such as steelmakers and industrial, tech and transport companies, are requesting clean energy and often setting up corporate venturing funds.
Last month, ArcelorMittal launched its XCarb innovation fund to invest up to $100m per year in companies developing pioneering or breakthrough technologies that will accelerate the industry’s transition to carbon neutral steelmaking.
In total, nearly 1,400 companies have promised to cut their net CO2 emissions to zero over the coming decades particularly through carbon offsets, where the gas is removed from the atmosphere, according to the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign.
In turn, this is causing interest in how these promises can be tracked, with Plan A, a Germany-based platform for corporate carbon footprint tracking and reporting, raising $3m in seed funding from VCs Demeter and Coparion and Japan-listed conglomerate SoftBank.
Anil Achyuta, partner at TDK Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the eponymous Japan-based advanced materials company, said: “Renewable adoption is a major driving force for TDK in order to reduce our carbon footprint by 100% by 2050 per our corporate goals. However, we believe there are a whole host of innovations in the carbon capture technologies into building materials, chemicals, and in food/nutrient production that we are very interested to deep dive and understand better.”