In what could be a game-changer for India to achieve its ambitious climate change goals and reduce emissions, the government has sought global help for a new technology that can enable it to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from furnace stack gases and route it for fertiliser production in the country.
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If and when this technology is received by India, it would enable the country’s industrial sector to bring down rising emissions. Engineers India Limited (EIL), under Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, on September 13 invited Expression Of Interest (EOI) from Indian and global companies for Carbon Capture technology from Furnace Stack Gases used in combustion plants. News18 has a copy of the notification.
This comes just days after India submitted its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) committing to a net-zero emission target of 2070. The technology, which has been sought, allows fossil-fuel based heavy industries like iron, steel, and cement companies to capture carbon dioxide emitted from the point-source, such as the flue of a gas-fired power plant, and inject it into geological reservoirs or convert into valuable chemicals like fertilisers for industrial use.
“With the increasing initiatives for de-carbonization to fight against global warming, several routes of Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) are emerging as a potential way. These play a critical role in this sustainable transformation of modern industry and economy to fight against climate change,” the notification says. It adds that the ability to avoid carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at their source industry is the basis for prospering societies and central to economic development.
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Through the current EOI, the PSU is looking to identify potential suppliers of such technology which can capture CO2 from furnace stack gases preferably through an established route — absorption or membrane separation — and eventually utilise it for fertiliser production. The PSU also plans to have an alliance with the Technology Licensor or Developer for successful implementation of the same in commercial scale plant or as a joint development partner for scale up and commercialisation of the carbon capture process.
Some experts welcomed the latest move of the government. “Carbon capture is an important option for heavy industries in which it is difficult to reduce process emissions. We can reduce fuel emissions by switching to renewable energy, but it is hard to abate process emissions that arise during chemical transformation of clinker to cement or using coke in steelmaking,” Ulka Kelkar, director, climate program, at World Resources Institute (WRI), told News18. She said that while the industry needs to use options like recycling and hydrogen to cut emissions, “it is also worthwhile to experiment with carbon capture to bring down its cost”.
Over the last two decades, CCUS has often been touted as an effective intermediate solution for near-decarbonisation of fossil fuel-based power generation, including coal and gas, if long-term targets are to be achieved. While it has found acceptability in several countries, CCUS is yet to become mainstream in India mainly due to scalability and feasibility issues. The latest move is expected to provide a fresh impetus to its wide-scale usage and applications in the industrial sector.
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The technology could play a significant role, especially for an emerging economy like India, which has time and again reiterated its pledge for climate action but remains hugely dependent on fossil fuels-based industries — especially coal. CCUS has the potential to help counterbalance these hard-to-abate residual emissions from industrial processes while accelerating efforts to achieve a net zero emission target.
Last year, Tata Steel had also commissioned a five tonnes per day (TPD) carbon capture plant at its Jamshedpur Works, becoming one of the country’s first steel companies to adopt a carbon capture technology that extracts CO2 directly from the Blast Furnace gas and makes it available for reuse on site.
