For some industries, decarbonization doesn’t mean shifting to a different source of energy. What can you do to decarbonize when your technology continues to emit CO2?
The CarbonBlue Model for Decarbonization of Direct (Scope 1) Emissions
In our last post, we reviewed the potential of e-fuels for turning the aviation and maritime shipping industries carbon-neutral. But what about businesses whose main emissions are not fuel-related?
One of the ways to think about solutions for this problem is with the help of a model we’ve developed at CarbonBlue.
CarbonBlue employs a three-layer model to address the complexities of decarbonizing industries, regardless of their energy supply. Each layer builds upon the previous one, offering a multi-faceted approach to decarbonization. When looking to reduce Scope 1 emissions in any industry, going through these levels and seeing where an impact can be made can help us find the most effective way to decarbonize.
1. Reduce
Streamlining processes, maximizing efficiency, and shifting to renewable electricity are crucial first steps in reducing emissions. Many industrial facilities were constructed before the gravity of climate change was clear. Usually, such installations can reduce emissions by adopting simple practices or equipment upgrades for which the required investments are comparable with routine maintenance. For example, installing heat pumps or solar heaters to reduce energy consumption for boiling water. These simple steps not only benefit the environment but also translate to increased profitability for the facility.
However, in many cases such steps are not sufficient. Then, the next best thing it can do is to capture.
2. Capture
Once an industry has maximized its efficiency, the next step is capturing the remaining emissions at their source and preventing them from being released into the atmosphere. Technologies for capturing CO2 from smokestacks exist, but the associated costs increase with decreasing CO2 concentration in the smokestack and with the transportation distance to the nearest storage or utilization site. These limitations make CO2 capture relevant only for specific industries and locations. Luckily, as capture technologies improve and CO2 storage projects proliferate, CO2 capture becomes an increasingly viable solution.
But in instances where reduction and capture are not possible, offsetting is the only way left for an industry to become net carbon neutral.
3. Offset
In the grand scheme of climate change, the only metric that really matters is that the total amount of CO2 humanity emits, not where it is emitted from. Therefore, if one industry cannot decarbonize its last bits of residual emissions, it is possible for other industries to pick up the slack and cover the difference. The Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) industry is defined by a negative carbon footprint and provides this essential decarbonization service.
CDR facilities capture more CO2 than they emit, and can therefore “cover” for other hard-to-abate industries and provide offsetting services for whatever CO2 emissions these industries cannot avoid.
A Surmountable Problem
The current capacity of existing CDR facilities falls far short of the scale needed to effectively address global hard-to-abate emissions, but the CDR industry is growing fast, and additional CDR facilities are constructed every day, including by CarbonBlue. Organizations that need such a service can secure their offsets by these future plants.
While the decarbonization of some industries may seem insurmountable – there is actually a lot we can do. In this blogpost we tried to describe the internal process each business needs to go through to become carbon neutral. Even when reduction and capture aren’t feasible, CDR companies like CarbonBlue, which focus on developing the technological tools and services to allow any industry to reach carbon neutrality without jeopardizing its core business, allow any industry to contribute to a sustainable climatic future.
