CCS today ‘a learning opportunity’ to cut costs, says DNV specialist

The first projects in the nascent carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector should not be viewed as failures but learning opportunities from which the industry can push on quickly to achieve effective build-out and scale, according to Blair McMaster, Senior Consultant Carbon Capture at DNV, the global assurance and risk management provider.

Speaking on gasworld’s ‘CO2: Securing supplies and exploring new pathways’ webinar, McMaster said global installed CCS capacity stands in the region of 50 million tonnes per year today – maybe approaching 60 million tonnes with new recent plant start-ups.

“Every forecast says we will need huge amounts of CO2 removal to reach Net Zero by 2050. And if we are to have huge amounts in 2040 and 2045 we will need to start deploying and reducing costs now,” he said. “There is [also] a real opportunity for utilisation in the next five to 10 years.”

North America is the most mature market, with majority of projects being pipeline-oriented, while many of the Asia capture projects have not clarified the plan for the collected CO2.