Masdar Carbon, one of the five business units of Masdar, the Abu Dhabi national clean energy conglomerate, announced yesterday in Abu Dhabi that it is moving ahead with a carbon capture and sequestration facility that will capture nearly 1 million tons of CO2 annually at the Emirates Steel complex at Mussafah.
The CO2 feed stream from the Emirates Steel plant will be compressed, dehydrated and then pumped through 50km of pipeline and injected in an onshore field, operated by Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations.
Part of the collaboration between Masdar and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the carbon capture facility is part of a program to explore joint projects between the two firms to reduce the carbon footprint of the emirate. The UAE has the second-highest per capita carbon emissions in the world, mostly because of it’s energy-intensive industrial base and extreme climatic conditions.
“Climate change is not a mirage,” Masdar Carbon Director Bader Al Lamki told me at the World Future Energy Conference in Abu Dhabi as we sat down to talk on Thursday.
“The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has recognized CCS as a means to reduce carbon emissions,” and “the International Energy Agency clearly states that CCS is part of the answer for climate change mitigation.”
“The close collaboration between Masdar Carbon and ADNOC will ensure steady progress and the project will take us another step closer to implementing measures for the reduction of carbon emissions and contributing to Abu Dhabi’s clean energy initiatives,” said Al Lamki said.
Bader Al Lamki explained that successful carbon capture projects are anticipated to have a positive long-term economic impact on Abu Dhabi including economic growth, job creation and the development and export of CCS-related technology know-how.
“It will also decisively affirm our global status as a major developer of carbon abatement projects and technologies,” Al Lamki said.
Mandated by the Abu Dhabi government to drive cleaner fossil fuel energy and energy efficiency at an industrial level, monetizing emission reductions along the way, Masdar Carbon provides technical assistance, project management, carbon finance and emissions trading expertise to asset owners primarily in the oil and gas and power sectors in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
And as was announced earlier in the week by Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond in Abu Dhabi, Masdar will be partnering with Scotland, another small, oil-producing nation gunning to ramp up its renewable energy portfolio, to develop advancements in CCS technology, value chain applications, policy and deployment strategies for clean energy and CCS.
Article by Timothy Hurst, appearing courtesy Earth & Industry.
