Who in Italy wants to carbonize the capture and storage of CO2
While SpaceX number one Elon Musk announced a program to capture CO2 and turn it into fuel for his rockets in Italy, 50 academics signed a letter addressed to Mattarella and Draghi to dispel the myth of decarbonization through the capture and storage of C02.
There are two opposing forces on the capture and storage of Co2 from the sides of the Atlantic.
On the one hand, in the United States, there is the billionaire Elon Musk, patron of Testa and SpaceX who on December 13 announced on Twitter: "SpaceX is starting a program to eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into rocket fuel" .
Musk's aerospace company will then launch a program to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to power spacecraft.
Using carbon dioxide to fuel space travel "will also be important for Mars," Musk added.
Governments are attempting to offset carbon emissions – which contribute to climate change – by developing carbon capture methods, bridging technologies of the ecological transition. But not everyone is in favor.
On the other hand, in Italy, on 12 December 53 academics wrote to the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister to dismantle the thesis of those who argue that carbon capture and storage (CCS) and its eventual use (CCUS) is a important emission reduction technology. Specifically, the appeal is directed against the projects of the Italian energy company Eni of Carbon Capture Use and Storage (Ccus).
According to the press in the 2022 Budget Law, the 150 million euros indicated in art. 153 could be used to finance the maxi Co2 deposit that Eni intends to build in Ravenna. "At the moment the Mise, questioned, has neither denied nor confirmed" underline the signatories of the letter reported in full by Qualenergia.
Yet, on the occasion of COP26 in Glasgow, Mario Draghi himself had stated that "in the long term renewable energies may have limits" therefore "we must invest in carbon capture technologies" .
All the details.
THE SPACEX PROJECT FOR THE CAPTURE OF CO2 AND SUBSEQUENT TRANSFORMATION INTO FUEL
“SpaceX is starting a program to remove Co2 from the atmosphere and turn it into rocket fuel. Join in if you are interested ”Elon Musk announced on Twitter, adding in a second tweet that this is“ also important for Mars ”.
SpaceX, which has become a launch service provider for clients like NASA, is developing deep space travel rockets that could send humans to Mars. Musk also stated in January that he would donate $ 100 million as a prize for the best carbon capture technology.
SpaceX is starting a program to take CO2 out of atmosphere & turn it into rocket fuel. Please join if interested.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 13, 2021
CO2 CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY
As Bloomberg points out, “the new initiative to produce rocket fuel would be based on one type of technology, direct air capture (DAC), still in its early stages of development. The largest DAC plant in the world, a facility in Iceland, went into operation in September and will lift 4,000 tons per year from the air, about double the previous DAC capacity in the world ”.
THE APPEAL OF 53 ACADEMICS TO DRAGHI AND MATTARELLA
But in Italy personalities from the academic world are firmly opposed to the carbon capture and storage technology, the Ccus (carbon capture, usage and storage).
“Proposing the storage and use of CO2 represents an extraordinary alibi for continuing to produce carbon dioxide, contributing to the current exponential growth trend of the environmental disaster. And by wickedly persevering in privatizing profits and socializing costs ”reads the appeal signed by 53 academics addressed to the President of the Republic Mattarella and to the President of the Council Draghi.
In particular, the signatories argue that "the CCUS is a candidate to be a convenient shortcut (waiting for nuclear power, of course!) And risks seriously compromising a serious process of decarbonisation of the production and consumption system that it should have instead in the rationalization / cut selective energy consumption ".
To endorse the thesis of the petitioners, the letter reads that "the Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies of the Directorate General for Internal Policies of the Commission, in its study prepared a few days ago for the Parliamentary Commission for Industry, Research and Energy , argues that in order to have a zero-emission European Union in 2050 we can and must do without CO2 capture and storage: "In countries that produce and export natural gas (including Norway, Australia, United States, United and Russia), CCS is seen as a technology that can help maintain the status quo of natural gas use "".
Specifically, the appeal is aimed at Eni's project in Ravenna to create a hub where the 'hard to abate' CO2 emissions produced by Versalis , the group's chemical company, are to be reduced .
THE ENI PROJECT IN RAVENNA
In Ravenna, Eni aims to create one of the largest CO₂ storage hubs in the world as well as the first in the Mediterranean. "The conversion to exclusive and permanent CO₂ storage sites of the depleted fields of the Adriatic, which will no longer produce natural gas, and the reuse of a small part of the existing infrastructures, will allow us to offer a quick and concrete solution at very competitive costs. the reduction of emissions in the Italian industrial sector ”explains the company on the website.
**********
We report in full the letter and, at the bottom, the signatories.
THE OPEN LETTER SIGNED BY 53 ACADEMICS RECOVERED BY QUALENERGIA
Dear Mr. President of the Republic
Dear Mr. President of the Council of Ministers,
recently some press organs have hypothesized that the 150 million euro indicated in art. 153 of the 2022 Budget Law can be used to finance the maxi CO2 deposit that Eni intends to build in the Upper Adriatic. The MiSE, questioned, has neither denied nor confirmed.
Is the use and storage of CO2 (the so-called CCUS, Carbon Capture Use and Storage) really a socially acceptable technology? Let's try to answer.
If we want to protect and save humanity and the planet and decisively reverse the current global warming caused by climate-altering gases, there is only one way forward: drastically and urgently reducing the use of fossil fuels. Europe's goals are clear: to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions (mainly CO2 and methane) by at least 55% by 2030 and to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
The CCUS to produce hydrogen from methane is a technology that instead of helping to solve the problem makes it more serious and prolongs it over time. As if to say, a painful and senseless therapeutic persistence.
Proposing the storage and use of CO2 represents an extraordinary alibi for continuing to produce carbon dioxide, contributing to the current trend of exponential growth of the environmental disaster. And by wickedly persevering to privatize profits and socialize costs.
Returning to the question posed, it is worth repeating the words of President Von der Leyen at the presentation of the European New Green Deal: “The economy based on fossil fuels has reached its limits. We want to leave a healthy planet, good jobs and growth that does not harm our nature to the next generation. Our growth strategy is moving towards a decarbonised economy ”.
Below are the arguments in support of our thesis.
Much has been written about the story of Eni's project and how it crossed the PNRR in its long gestation phase: from Conte's Next Generation, which provided for a 1.35 billion euro stake for the "development of the first decarbonization in southern Europe by building a carbon capture, transport and injection system in Ravenna, produced by the industrial district of Ravenna-Ferrara-Porto Marghera, as well as from the production of decarbonised hydrogen and electricity, in the existing depleted fields in the Adriatic Sea " , up to the niet of the European Commission and, finally, to the 150 million euros of the Fund to support the industrial transition which, barring unlikely upheavals, will be confirmed if not, given the pressure of Confindustria, replenished.
Certainly there is the request made by Eni to MiTE to authorize the experimental program for the geological storage of carbon dioxide in the “AC 26.EA” cultivation concession, in Porto Corsini, published in the BUIG last June.
The thesis of those who, like the IEA, argue that carbon capture and storage (CCS) and its possible use (CCUS) is an important emission reduction technology that can be applied to the entire energy system, can be summarized in terms that follow: the technology is mature and constitutes a useful "bridge solution" capable of contributing to the reduction of emissions, alongside renewables in the difficult path of transition. One of the key factors that can influence the adoption of CCUS on a large scale – some scholars argue – is the social acceptability of the technology, which should be facilitated by the concerted and concentrated efforts of researchers, universities, NGOs and policy makers.
On the contrary, the Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies of the Commission's Directorate-General for Internal Policies, in its study prepared a few days ago for the Parliamentary Commission for Industry, Research and Energy, argues that in order to have a European Union zero emissions in 2050 we can and should do without CO2 capture and storage: "In countries that produce and export natural gas (including Norway, Australia, United States, United Kingdom and Russia), CCS is seen as a technology that can help maintain the status quo of natural gas use ".
Is CCUS really a socially acceptable technology? The answer can be found by going to the bottom of partly known questions.
First. Oil companies are among the main culprits of greenhouse gas emissions whose effects we have learned to recognize and measure – disastrous – on a planetary scale.
Energy production activities are responsible for 75% of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions (EEA, 2021) and today the EU energy system is based on fossil fuels for three quarters. On the other hand, the TransitionPathwayInitiative (TPI) in its "Carbon Performance of European Integrated Oil and Gas Companies: Briefing paper" states that no oil big – Eni a little less than the others – has strategies and plans consistent with the achievement of the fateful target of +1.5 ° C by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial levels.
Is it unreasonable to ask that the oil industry should first of all put its own house in order, drawing on its own resources without putting the burden of investments necessary for decarbonisation on general taxation?
The “external” costs of oil activities (both upstream and downstream) are largely paid by the community in terms of deaths, higher health care costs, loss of crops and working days, loss of GDP, etc. caused by climate change.
It is therefore socially acceptable that it is precisely the victims of greenhouse gas emissions who have to compensate the "executioners", already abundantly assisted with 19 billion euros a year of Environmentally Harmful Subsidies, bearing for a second time the cost of abatement of CO2?
Second. The injection and storage of CO2 in wells that are nearing depletion or already depleted will give new life to the extraction of gas and oil. It is no coincidence that commercial scale underground carbon storage has so far only been carried out in operational oil or gas fields (advanced oil / gas recovery) and not in other geological formations.
For Europe, the Oil & Gas Europe association has provided a list of projects updated to July 2021: only three of those listed are operational and all are associated with the recovery of oil and / or natural gas. Is this a mere coincidence?
CO2 can be injected into depleted (or nearly depleted) oil / gas fields to increase their pressure and provide the driving force to extract residual oil and gas, while the injected CO2 remains stored there.
In this way, up to 40% of the residual oil left in a reservoir after primary production can be extracted. Massachusetts Institute Technology's Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2-EOR) studies based on Weyburne Apache Midale (Canada) cases showed that EOR increased production from the Weyburn Cenovus field by 16,000-28,000 barrels per day and by 2,300 to 5,800 barrels per day for the Apache Midale field, and that the EOR should allow the production of an additional 130 million barrels of oil, extending the life of the Weyburn field by 25 years.
A doubt and a question arise spontaneously:
Does Eni intend to increase the quantities extracted and extend the life cycle of the fields in the Upper Adriatic by injecting and storing CO2 in its longest-lived wells?
Is it socially acceptable to continue to extract additional quantities of gas and new oil for another 25 years thanks to CCUS technology?
Third. The capture, transport and storage of CO2 are part of a circular process that focuses on the production of hydrogen from fossil sources (blue hydrogen).
In its recent paper "Analyzing future demand, supply, and transport of hydrogen", European Hydrogen Blackbone concludes that hydrogen is crucial for the transformation of Europe into a climate-neutral continent and that in the EU and the United Combined with 2050, hydrogen demand of 2,300 TWh could be recorded, equal to 20-25% of final energy consumption. In this game, blue hydrogen, whose projects have a duration of at least 25 years, could play an important role.
Financing the CCUS would therefore mean giving the opening to the production of blue hydrogen and, consequently, to the extraction and consumption of gas in a time horizon that goes up to 2050, well beyond, therefore, the point of no return. Are these the times for a sustainable transition? Is this also socially acceptable?
Fourth. The storage of CO2 in wells nearing exhaustion or already exhausted exempts cultivation concessionaires from carrying out very expensive environmental restoration activities: from 15 to 30 million euros per single platform, according to the Roca di Ravenna.
Considering that Eni's platforms at sea are 138 (source: Progetto Poseidon, Eni), reconverting them rather than dismantling them would avoid costs that can be estimated on average at over 3.15 billion euros. Why pulverize the investments already made in works for the research and extraction of hydrocarbons – ask the members of the fossil party – when those same infrastructures could be reused to store CO2?
Why should the community contribute to the financing of very expensive private projects for the capture, transport, injection and storage of CO2 in order to avoid burdening the budgets of the Oil & Gas companies?
We are the usual: profits are privatized and everything else is socialized, including negative externalities. What extraordinary concentration of intelligence would be able to make it digest in public opinion?
Fifth. Eni knows perfectly well, and not since yesterday, that the CCUS is a formidable weapon for developing a new market, with potential and profitability like few others.
Eni and Enel had already worked on it, reaching the finalization in 2008 of a strategic cooperation agreement for the development of carbon dioxide capture, transport and storage technologies. Once liquefied, the CO2 extracted from the Enel coal-fired power plant in Brindisi should one day have been stored by Eni in the depleted Stogit field in Cortemaggiore.
Two years earlier, in 2006, at the end of the studies conducted on possible underground CO2 deposits in the framework of the Confitanet project, in which Eni also took part, the INGV had come to affirm that:
"The storage potentials in our country would safely allow us to run our coal and natural gas plants with ZEFFPP (Zero Emissions Fossil Fuel Power Plant) criteria and to clear the skies of the huge emissions from our refineries."
While in October 2007 Il Sole 24 ORE went so far as to prefigure the birth of a global CO2 market "made up of innovative plants for the capture and treatment of emissions from new generation coal plants, gas pipelines for CO2, pumping into deep geological strata (saline aquifers below 1500 meters, also proof of seismic risk), of control and monitoring units of deposits, not very different from those used today for methane by Stogit "in which …" … The electricity operators who adopt it will no longer have to buy green certificates, but rather will receive them free of charge because they are equipped with plants that go well beyond the emission limits set in the (Kyoto) treaty ".
If this were to happen someday, would it be to blame? All in all, ours is a market economy …
This is not exactly the case.
In a country where the energy game is played by few (Eni, Snam, Terna and Enel), with the approval of the Government, Parliament, ARERA, the Competition Authority and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti; in which the non-establishment of the Pniec-Pnrr Commission is causing serious delays in the authorization process for solar power plants with a power greater than 10 MW; in which the State and Regions cannot find the right balance on the permitting of plants for the production of energy from renewable sources; in which it seems increasingly unlikely to reach the goal, so dear to Minister Cingolani, of 114 gigawatts renewable by 2030, the CCUS is a candidate to be a convenient shortcut (waiting for nuclear power, of course!) and risks seriously compromising a serious path decarbonisation of the production and consumption system which should instead have the pillars of a truly sustainable energy model in the rationalization / selective cutting of energy consumption, in the search for efficiency and in the growth of distributed generation.
Rome, 12 December 2021
THE SIGNATORS
Vincenzo Balzani, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry “G. Ciamician ”, University of Bologna
Alessandra Bonoli, Professor of Raw Materials Engineering and Resources and Recycling, Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna
Enrico Gagliano, Adjunct Lecturer in Energy and Environmental Law, University of Teramo
Alessandro Abbotto, Professor of Organic Materials for Renewable Energy, University of Milano-Bicocca
Raffaele Giuseppe Agostino, Professor of Experimental Physics, Department of Physics, University of Calabria
Nicola Armaroli, Chemist, Research Director of the National Research Council, Bologna
Ugo Bardi, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Florence
Alberto Bellini, Professor of converters, machines and electrical drives, Department of Electrical Energy and Information Engineering "Guglielmo Marconi", University of Bologna
Enrico Bonatti, Senior Scientist, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, CNR ISMAR, Bologna
Enrico Brugnoli, CNR Research Institute on Terrestrial Ecosystems, currently Scientific Attaché at the Italian Embassy in Moscow
Federico Butera, Professor Emeritus, Polytechnic of Milan
Carlo Cacciamani, Physicist, Head of the IdroMeteoClima Structure, Arpa Emilia Romagna
Romano Camassi, Researcher, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Bologna Section
Sebastiano Campagna, Director of the Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina
Luigi Campanella, former president of the Italian Chemical Society, Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Cultural Heritage, "La Sapienza" University, Rome
Francesco Domenico Capizzi, Surgeon, President of SMIPS (Science Medicine Institutions Political Society), Bologna
Ingrid Carbone, Researcher at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Calabria
Daniela Cavalcoli, Professor of Physics of Matter, Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi", University of Bologna
Paola Ceroni, Professor of General and Inorganic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry “G. Ciamician ”, University of Bologna
Marco Cervino, Public Researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences (ISAC-CNR), Bologna
Donata Chiricò, Researcher at the Department of Cultures, Education and Society, University of Calabria
Salvatore Coluccia, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, University of Turin
Giuliana Commisso, Researcher in Sociology of Economic and Labor Processes of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria
Giuseppe De Natale, Research Director of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and former Director of the Vesuvian Observatory
Elisabetta Della Corte, Researcher in Sociology of Economic and Labor Processes of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria
Claudio Della Volpe, Professor of Applied Physical Chemistry, University of Trento
Gianfranco Denti, Professor of General and Inorganic Chemistry, University of Pisa
Enzo Di Salvatore, Professor of Constitutional and Comparative Law Faculty of Law, University of Teramo
Walter Ganapini, Honorary Member, Scientific Committee, European Environment Agency
Alessandro Gaudio, Researcher in Literary Sciences at the Department of Cultures, Education and Society, University of Calabria
Domenico Giordano, Professor of Commercial Law, Faculty of Law, University of Teramo
Daniela Imbardelli, Researcher of Physical Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry at the Faculty of SMFN, University of Calabria
Massimo La Deda, Professor of General and Inorganic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria
Pierandrea Lo Nostro, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry "Ugo Schiff", University of Florence
Giulio Marchesini Reggiani, Professor of Dietary Sciences, Department of Medicine and Surgery (DIMEC), University of Bologna
Nadia Marchettini, Professor of Chemical Sciences at the Department of Physical, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Siena
Giuseppe Marino, Professor of Mathematical Analysis at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Calabria
Vittorio Marletto, Director of the Climate Observatory Arpae Emilia Romagna, Bologna
Silvia Mazzuca, Professor of Biology and Botany at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria
Isabella Nicotera, Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria
Libero Nigro, Professor of Computer Engineering at the Department of Computer Engineering, Modeling, Electronics and Systems, University of Calabria
Giuseppe Antonio Nisticò, Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Department of Physics, University of Calabria
Maurizio Prato, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Trieste
Giuseppe Ranieri, Professor of Environmental Physical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria
Massimo Scalia, Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Department of Mathematics, "La Sapienza" University, Rome
Leonardo Setti, Professor of the Department of Industrial Chemistry, University of Bologna
Gianni Silvestrini, Scientific Director Kyoto Club, Master Ridef Politecnico Milano
Francesco Stoppa, Professor of Petrology and Petography, Department of Psychological, Health and Territory Sciences, University of Chieti – Pescara
Micol Todesco, Geologist at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Bologna
Sandro Tripepi, Professor of Zoology at the Department of Biology, Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Calabria
Sergio Ulgiati, Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Life Cycle Analysis at the Department of Science and Technology, University of Naples Parthenope
Margherita Venturi, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Bologna
Annamaria Vitale, Professor of Sociology of the Environment, Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/chi-in-italia-vuole-carbonizzare-cattura-e-stoccaggio-di-co2/ on Sat, 08 Jan 2022 07:14:31 +0000.