Over the past decade, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has attracted increasing attention nationally and internationally as an important technological option for climate change mitigation. In parallel, CCS has moved to the centre of climate policy debates.

Research on CCS is developing on two frontiers:

  1. Analysis of how societies are engaging with CCS as a mitigation option
  2. Exploring both basic technology developments for mitigation and how these align with the needs of the climate and environmental policy community

Cutting across both of these themes is a three-way focus on CCS and the emergence of long-term climate and energy strategies; regulation, policy instruments, and public acceptance; and the international politics of CCS in developing countries. This research project seeks to build on these developments by focusing in particular on the development and evaluation of innovative and sustainable technology and business solutions for CCS, and on the application of these in a major developing economy, namely in China.

CCS in China

This research focuses on the iron and steel industry in China. As the third largest source of GHG emissions after power and cement industries, the iron/steel sector contributes carbon dioxide emissions estimated at about 3 Gt per year – equivalent to approximately 9% of global energy-related carbon emissions. Iron- and steel-making processes are energy- and carbon-intensive as a result of large fossil fuel requirements, both as feedstock and as an energy source. Any effective CCS strategy must address complex technological and economic issues posed by this sector. CCS remains one of the main options to reducing carbon emissions in the sector that is being considered by stakeholders.

Second, China represents an important case study for the development and deployment of CCS technologies. In China, the pursuit of CCS in the foreseeable future is driven by interest in technology R&D that could underwrite an export market in the future. As such, the Chinese interests in CCS R&D, along with those of more developed countries, intersect where both parties seek to promote the emergence of low-cost emissions offset opportunities. Moreover, in order for China to dramatically reduce its GHG emissions, it must either replace almost all its uses of coal with energy supplies with renewable energy and nuclear power resources or install demonstration-size, followed by upscaling of, CCS technologies.

Currently, China is pushing for increased investment in both renewable energy and nuclear power projects and with CCS demo projects. At such a time, and given the magnitude of coal usage in China and the country's lack of access to other energy resources, it is likely the Chinese will make substantial efforts to developing CCS. The much more challenging alternative would be to try to phase out a majority of its coal usage within just a few decades, given its outsized dependence on this particular energy resource.

Prior Projects

The commitment to apply of CCS to large-scale industrial facilities, particularly to fossil fuel power generation and high-energy consuming industrial plants, is reflected in the ongoing construction of large-scale demonstration plants as a bridge to full commercial deployment. However, there are very few pilot and large-scale demonstration CCS projects in the steel sector. Only one global operational project, the Abu Dhabi CCS Project, captures CO2 from a steel plant at scale. However, this plant manufactures steel through the direct reduced iron (DRI) method – as opposed to the more typical and widely-common blast furnace route – and therefore has less cost- and technical-benchmarking significance for CCS in the steel sector.

This Research

Against this background, the proposed research will deliver a feasibility study for a first-of-a-kind carbon capture project in the steel sector. In December 2017, the University of Edinburgh Business School was commissioned by BHP Billiton to conduct a two-year collaborative research project (Dec 17 to Dec 19) to unlock the potential of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) for steel production in China. The collaboration involves Suzhou Research Institute, North China Electric Power University (NCEPU) and the UK-China Guangdong CCUS Centre (GDCCUSC), where all partners will jointly complete 13 working packages.