India Charts Green Energy Strategy at US-India Bilateral Meet

Green energy was at the forefront during at recently concluded bilateral meeting on US-India Civil Nuclear Commerce in New Delhi.

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology, Dr. Jitendra Singh, emphasized the Green Hydrogen Mission as a cornerstone of India’s strategy to decarbonize heavy industries, transportation, and power generation.

He said that attaining the global climate goals and promoting innovation in clean technologies depend on this effort. India has established robust policy frameworks and international partnerships that will position it to spearhead the shift towards a sustainable energy future.

Dr Singh highlighted the importance of global supply chains in sectors like semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and clean energy technologies. He spoke about the Indian government’s investment in research, development, and regulatory frameworks for Small Modular Reactors.

According to him, India has pledged to implement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Panchamrit” climate action plan. The aim is to increase non-fossil energy capacity, reduce carbon emissions, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.

Dr. Ravi Chandran, Secretary, Earth Sciences, highlighted advancements in ocean energy and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technologies.

Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, the Department of Biotechnology, emphasized India’s advancements in biomass-to-energy conversion and the successful implementation of biofuels.

Professor Abhay Karandikar, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, underscored India’s advancements in emerging technologies like data analytics, AI, and machine learning.

Dr N Kalaiselvi, Director General of CSIR, underlined advancements in lithium-ion battery development and indigenous battery manufacturing, emphasizing the need for sustainable and circular energy storage solutions.

ArcelorMittal Belgium is testing a new technology to convert captured CO2 into carbon monoxide for steel and chemical production.

The company plans to achieve a 35% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 through the use of circular carbon in blast furnaces, CCS, or CCU.

It has partnered with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and climate tech company D-CRBN for the project in Gent, Belgium.

D-CRBN has developed a plasma-based technology to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide.

This process can be used as a reductant in steelmaking or as a basic ingredient in AMGent’s Steelanol plant for chemicals or alternative fuel production. The technology requires high-purity CO2, which can be provided by MHI’s carbon capture unit.

On its part, MHI is conducting a large-scale trial to evaluate the effectiveness of their Advanced KM CDR Process carbon capture technology, building on their ongoing pilot.

Manfred Van Vlierberghe, CEO, ArcelorMittal Belgium, said, “We are proud to be part of this unique carbon capture and usage trial in Gent, which is part of our strategy to develop the Smart Carbon steelmaking route in ArcelorMittal Belgium.”

Gill Scheltjens, CEO, D-CRBN, said, “Our technology can electrify and decarbonize existing blast furnaces and significantly reduce their coal use. The conversion of CO2 back into CO for steel production will limit the need for green hydrogen in the future and reduce the costs of emission-free products.”

Tatsuto Nagayasu, Senior Vice President (CCUS), GX (Green Transformation) Solutions, MHI’s, said, “Our collaboration with Arcelormittal and D-CRBN in Belgium provides another tool for the industry to reduce its carbon footprint – capturing emissions, converting them into a valuable feedstock, and feeding them back into the process. This initiative demonstrates our commitment to sustainable practices and innovative solutions for a greener future.”

ArcelorMittal has selected three start-ups as the joint winners of its inaugural XCarb India Accelerator Program.

The three winners are UrjanovaC, AgroMorph Technosolutions and Susstains Engineering Solutions. Each company will receive $50,000 as prize money and will be mentored to develop technologies and business models.

The winners:

UrjanovaC :
The enterprise is developing a carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology to support the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors including steel. The technology uses a patented catalyst and wastewater to convert industrial CO2 emissions from flue gas into useful by-products like PCC and soda ash. These applications are applicable in various industries.

Prof. Vikram Vishal, Director & Co-Founder, UrjanovaC, said, “Our sustainable, practical, low-cost, and scalable decarbonization technology based on a patented catalytic process captures CO2 from air as well as emission gases and stores it permanently as carbonate salts. The team at UrjanovaC envisions translating net-zero pledges into reality through rapid deployment and is thrilled about the upcoming partnerships across borders and sectors.”

AgroMorph TechnoSolutions:
The company is creating a modular, algae-based CCUS system designed to remove carbon from industrial flue gases and absorb nutrients from wastewater. The process provides a sustainable method for carbon capture through natural photosynthesis, reducing the use of chemicals and providing a diverse range of nutrient-rich algae-based products.

Dr. Akanksha Agarwal, Founding Director, AgroMorph Technosolutions, said, “The program offered a great opportunity for AgroMorph as it helped us explore decarbonization challenges via algae. It provided in-depth understanding and perspectives of the steel industry, which is a great value-add for start-ups.”

Susstains Engineering Solutions:
The start-up founded by IIT Madras PhD students, is developing biochar technology for the steel industry. The technology utilizes biomass carbonization methods to enhance the yield, productivity, and quality of biochar produced.

Dr. Muthu Kumar, Founder, Susstains Engineering Solutions, added, “The program was a great opportunity, as it helped us understand the potential use of biochar in the steel industry. The AM/NS India facility’s testing of biochar samples provided confidence that with fine-tuning, our biochar could potentially replace coal.”

Partners:

GDC-IIT Madras, and SINE-IIT Bombay partnered with ArcelorMittal for the program.

Irina Gorbounova, Head, XCarb Innovation Fund, said, “The last 11 months provided us great insight into the start-up landscape of India and the opportunities it presents. It was a pleasure collaborating with IIT Madras and we look forward to continued engagement them.”

The JSW group plans to invest $1 billion to attain net neutrality by 2050.

The company has drawn a two-pronged strategy involving green hydrogen and carbon capture to achieve this goal.

As part of its first phase of the plan, JSW Steel intends to reduce emissions from the current 2.36 tonne of CO2 per tonne of steel produced to 1.95 by 2030. The plan calls for immediate action because the Indian steel industry accounts for about 12% of the nation’s industrial energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The company’s next phase, which is targeted for 2050, is to use green hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies to achieve net neutrality.

JSW plans to use more efficient raw materials, optimize processes, increase energy efficiency, switch to renewable energy, and investigate alternative fuel options.

While the company has been working on decarbonization for some time, its plan really took off in 2022 when it announced a partnership with SMS Group, a German engineering and technology company, to explore innovative solutions and research and development projects with the objective of lowering carbon emissions from the company’s iron and steelmaking operations in India.

In a press release announcing the partnership, JSW Steel said that it would invest Rs. 10,000 crore to reduce carbon emissions from steel manufacturing and aims to bring down GHG emissions by 42% to <1.95 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of crude steel by 2030.

In yet another initiative, JSW and Smartex inked a memorandum of understanding to advance innovation and turnkey solutions for decarbonization in India’s steel industry.

SLB and TotalEnergies have announced a 10-year partnership to facilitate better performance and energy efficiency.

The partnership establishes a flexible framework for companies to collaborate on tackling key challenges in the energy value chain, including carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS).

The partnership will initially focus on subsurface digital solutions for reservoir engineering and geoscience modeling, utilizing Delfi on-demand reservoir simulation and AI for automation.

The strategy is in line with Open Group’s OSDU Technical Standard. The co-development will benefit TotalEnergies’ global operations and SLB’s worldwide customer base.

“Collaboration and knowledge sharing are key for our industry to continuously develop more effective ways of unlocking energy access,” said Rakesh Jaggi, President, Digital & Integration Business, SLB.

“Through this digital partnership we will develop cutting-edge next-generation software, digital applications and new algorithms applied to geoscience. Thanks to these innovative modeling technologies, we will not only be better able to utilize the analyses of geological reservoirs and basins in the Oil & Gas sector to reduce emissions but also to make further progress in geological carbon storage,” said Namita Shah, President, OneTech, TotalEnergies.

State-owned NTPC for setting up a plant to produce 4G ethanol from flue gas.

Jakson Green which has won the contract, will establish the world’s first flue gas CO2-to-4G ethanol project for a power plant.

The proposed plant at Lara in Chhattisgarh will:

• Produce 10 tonnes per day (TPD) of 4G ethanol from flue gases emitted from the power plants
• Generate 3 TPD of green hydrogen through 7.5 MW electrolyser
• Capture 25 TPD CO2 from flue gases significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using carbon capture technology by Veolia Carbon Clean.

The process:

According to Jakson Green, LanzaTech Inc.’s advanced microbial fermentation technology combines captured carbon dioxide and generated hydrogen, converting these inputs into 4G ethanol.

The partners:

As the licensing, engineering, procurement, and construction (LEPC) partner, Jakson Green will spearhead this project, expected to begin operations in two years.

NETRA (NTPC Energy Technology Research Alliance), the research and development arm of NTPC Ltd. has conceptualized the plant.

Kannan Krishnan, Joint Managing Director, Jakson Green Private Limited, said, “… Increasing the production of ethanol is crucial to achieving India’s blending goals, strengthening energy security, and fostering a cleaner future.”

Achieving net-zero requires no magic bullet.

These are the findings of a new report titled “Synchronizing energy transitions towards possible net-zero for India: Affordable and clean energy for All.”

The study aims to analyze India’s energy transition towards a net-zero energy basket, focusing on minimizing power costs and determining the optimal power mix for net-zero emissions.

Launched by IIM Ahmedabad as part of a study project sanctioned by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India with part-funding from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), the report is a comprehensive study, bringing together aspects from all sectors of power generation in one place, providing a holistic view of the Indian energy sector and throwing light on the potential pathways for a development-led transition to net-zero.

The objective of the study and key findings:

The objective of the study was also to address important questions regarding India’s energy trajectory. The key questions include:

How much energy the country needs to achieve a high Human Development Index (HDI) score?
How to get there?
What energy mix projections are for this until 2070 (our declared net-zero target year)?
How much electricity will cost the end user?
How much carbon will be released until then?
What investments will be needed for energy transitions towards net-zero in 2070?
An estimate of other opportunities and challenges (RE integration, requirement of critical minerals, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), natural gas, ethanol, hydrogen); etc.
By 2070, net-zero energy cannot be achieved without significant nuclear power and the production of renewable energy (RE).
By 2070, net-zero energy systems will require the electricity industry to decarbonize well ahead of schedule.
In 2070, India’s projected emissions are expected to range from 0.56 to 1.0 billion tons of CO2.
As envisioned in our nationally determined contributions (NDCs), it is anticipated that sequestration in forestry and tree cover will offset the remaining gap in emissions.

Key stakeholders:

Dr. V. K. Saraswat, a member of NITI Aayog, expressed the need for more renewable energy penetration and the need for a transition from large reactors to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) with industry participation. He also emphasized the need for alternative fuel options like Thorium to reduce Uranium import dependence.

Dr. A. K. Mohanty, the Chairman of the AEC and Secretary of the DAE, provided an outline of the nation’s ongoing nuclear program and its plans to increase installed nuclear capacity by 100 GW by 2047.

Prof. Ajay Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India, in his opening remarks, stated that these pathways also need large resources to be put in place, hence, we need to synergize our efforts in various sectors.

Dr. Anil Kakodkar, former Chairman, AEC highlighted the need for the development of technologies for low-cost hydrogen production.

Besides Prof. Sood, Dr. Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog; Dr. A. K. Mohanty, Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); Shri P. A. Suresh Babu, Distinguished Scientist and Director (HR), NPCIL who joined on behalf of CMD, NPCIL; Dr. (Mrs.) Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, Office of PSA. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chancellor, Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI) and former Chairman, AEC was the Guest of Honour and he had joined the meeting online.

Pathways towards net-zero and the way forward:

The stakeholders observed that to implement the transition, various paths must be taken and a wide range of technologies in our energy basket must coexist. It is anticipated that coal will remain the mainstay of the Indian energy system for the next 20 years, the report notes.

The report concludes that achieving net-zero energy requires multiple paths and the coexistence of various technologies. It predicts coal will remain the mainstay for 20 years, necessitating nuclear power and renewable energy production by 2070. India’s emissions are projected to be between 0.56 and 1.0 billion tons by 2070.

The coal phase-down necessitates active policies on minerals and carbon dioxide removal technologies, while net-zero pathways, focusing on nuclear and renewable power, can provide clean, affordable electricity. The global electricity share of end-use sectors is expected to rise to 47-52% by 2020-2070, with financial requirements reaching Rs 150-200 lakh crore, with significant international financial flows.

According to the study, to implement the transition, various paths must be taken and a wide range of technologies in our energy basket must coexist. It is anticipated that coal will remain the mainstay of the Indian energy system for the next 20 years.

ADNOC has announced the final investment decision and award of contracts for the Hail and Ghasha offshore development project.

The project:

Hail and Ghasha are part of Abu Dhabi’s Ghasha Concession. The concession is set to produce more than 1.5 billion standard cubic feet per day (BSCFD) of gas before the end of the decade. It will contribute to UAE’s gas self-sufficiency and ADNOC’s gas growth and export expansion plans.

Hail and Ghasha’s carbon capture will aid ADNOC’s carbon management strategy, establishing a unique platform to accelerate UAE’s decarbonization goals by connecting emissions sources and sequestration sites. The company said in a press release that the final investment decision follows a recent announcement by ADNOC to double its carbon capture capacity target to 10 MPTA of CO2 by 2030.

The first EPC contract for the offshore facilities includes facilities on artificial islands and subsea pipelines. It has been awarded to a joint venture between National Petroleum Construction Company and Saipem S.p.A.

The second EPC contract will deliver the onshore scope, including CO2 and sulphur recovery and handling. It has been awarded to Tecnimont S.p.A.

The two EPC contracts were signed at ADIPEC. Over 60 percent of the investment value of the entire project will flow back into the UAE’s economy under ADNOC’s In-Country Value (ICV) program. The company is committed to ensuring that the contracts it awards contribute more economic value to the country.

Carbon capture:

The project aims to operate with net zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This reinforces ADNOC’s legacy of responsible energy production, net zero by 2045 ambition, and accelerated decarbonization plan.

The Hail and Ghasha development design combines innovative decarbonization technologies into one integrated solution. The project will capture 1.5 MTPA of CO2 taking ADNOC’s committed investment for carbon capture capacity to almost 4 MPTA. The CO2 will be captured, transported onshore, and safely stored underground, while low-carbon hydrogen is produced that can replace fuel gas and further reduce emissions. The project will also leverage clean power from nuclear and renewable sources from the grid, the company said in a press release.

Abdulmunim Al Kindy, Executive Director, ADNOC Upstream, said, “The project will drive in-country value, provide highly skilled career opportunities for UAE Nationals, and stimulate socio-economic growth for the nation. Natural gas is an important transition fuel and ADNOC will continue to responsibly unlock its gas resources to enable gas self-sufficiency for the UAE. This initiative grow our export capacity, and support global energy security.”

Tag: Carbon capture

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