The push-pull forces impacting industrial decarbonisation

By 2030, the industrial sector must have reduced CO2 emissions by 50 gigatonnes. Currently, industry produces 38 gigatonnes of carbon emissions per year and is therefore under a great deal of pressure to reach decarbonisation goals.

To understand why it's so challenging for industry to decarbonise and unpack the forces pushing the sector towards action, Pamela Largue talks to Tim Byrne, Global Vice-President of Climate Bright at Babcock & Wilcox.

Byrne explained, "The reason why it's so challenging [to decarbonise] is because of the complexity of the emissions sources...it comes through process and energy generation, so it's difficult and expensive to do.

"Also it's important to remember in terms of industry, that in a lot of these processes, natural gas is actually a feedstock...it's a very complex problem for industry to work on".

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Forces pushing net zero action

According to Byrne, there are a number of factors pushing industry to implement decarbonisation strategies and technologies with a sense of urgency.

Firstly, governments are bringing carbon taxation and other programmes to the table to stimulate industry to take action.

Also, said Byrne, there's also a lot of investor and consumer activism in the market with consumers demanding sustainability and transparency in terms of what companies are achieving and how they are achieving it.

"Even in the investment world with ESG funding, it's worth north of 55 trillion dollars globally...these factors are pushing industry forward to deal with the emissions."

Considerations hindering net zero action

When it comes to carbon, said Byrne, "You can remove it, avoid it, reduce it, you can use it for beneficial use or store it.

"Primarily your decarbonisation strategies will revolve around those areas."

And despite the fact that technologies are currently available to decarbonise, there are three main factors influencing whether or not a company moves forward.

Financial influences

The role of government is important in terms of what programmes are being implemented to push the industry forward, explained Byrne. The programmes should provide production and investment tax credits to incentivize companies to move forward.

Financial markets also play an important role, said Byrne. "Capital must open to industry to be able to invest in developing technology...and to accept additional risk to support those projects is key."

Byrne added that ensuring global unification on carbon markets and credits, as well as carbon capture as a service will also play into the financial factors influencing progress.

Technical solutions

From a technology perspective, most industrial processes use a lot of heat, energy and steam, said Byrne.

This means that integrating the technology is complicated and challenging, especially in terms of "integrating with the process technology to ensure they still meet their operational obligations."

Infrastructure to deal with the CO2

Byrne went on to explain that the next important consideration is what to do with the CO2 once it's captured.

According to Byrne, it will take a lot of public and private participation to get a system in place that ensures CCUS is economical and efficient.

There are however technology solutions coming to the fore that balance affordability and flexibility, said Byrne, who believes we will see a great deal of development over the next decade.

"Soon, companies will be able to integrate multiple technologies...I think in 2030 we will look back and see a massive injection of technology into the market to solve the problem."

Byrne concluded by emphasising that the energy transition is a decades-long process, a process that we are in the early stages of. However, companies getting ahead of the decarbonisation curve will have a clear competitive advantage, he said.

Watch the whole interview with Tim Byrne by clicking on the below video link.