Countries driven by high emissions exports are being hit by international regulations on emissions such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in the EU, development of the carbon price, and market competitiveness. Abruptly shutting down national industries to lower emissions would lead to the breakdown of the economy and a colossal loss of jobs. Net-zero transition strategies therefore must be coupled with climate adaptation strategies to balance socio-economic progress alongside environmental responsibility. To do so, dovetailing post-combustion Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies to existing industries and new ones is a must. More effective than carbon offsets, CCS must soon be offered in high-emission economies to industries by municipalities as a mandatory infrastructure requirement such as water and sewage connection.
The Middle East region’s only CCS facility is located in Al Reyadah, in the UAE, established by ADNOC and currently caters to CO2 supply from a single CO2 emitter which is a steel company. As a next step for the UAE, a hub and cluster model of CCS must be seriously considered to retain existing industries and jobs, support small-volume industrial facilities, attracting new investments while progressing on the UAE’s net-zero goals of cutting carbon emissions by 31% by 2030.
A CCS hub and cluster facility brings together multiple CO2 emitters using shared CO2 transportation infrastructure and stores the cumulated CO2 in the earth. This is different from ‘point-to-point’ projects and captive CCS facilities in which the CCS caters to a singular CO2 supply.
However, areas such as the UAE, where there is a high concentration of several CO2-emitting industries, can be considered prime sites for hub and cluster developments of CCS to reduce the costs and risks of developing the facility. This is because many industrial plants operate at much smaller scales, and it may be uneconomic for any individual facility to consider setting up a dedicated CCS facility, which includes capture, compression, transport, and permanent storage of CO2.
By clustering, in which several industrial facilities share CCS infrastructure and knowledge, costs are reduced compared with each facility attempting to individually reduce emissions. Clustering creates a network of emitters, centralising the parts of the CCS infrastructure that are shared by all of the individual CO2 contributors.
To further overcome the two other major risks associated with CCS—CO2 supply risk and CO2 storage capacity constraints—developing a hub and cluster infrastructure must separate collections from storage. A mesh of CO2 transportation pipelines from several CO2 emitters located in close proximity should connect to a ‘collections hub’ close by, which should then be connected to a ‘storage hub’. Separating the collections hub from the storage hub ensures that once the storage hub reaches full capacity, the collections hub can simply to connected to another storage hub rather than needing to dismantle the entire CCS facility.
In the UAE, to effectively absorb CO2 from the entire value chain of the oil and gas industry in the country, the hub and cluster CCS facilities need to be widespread and on a substantially large scale. This is an important factor to consider when deploying CCS as a national decarbonisation strategy.
The need for the UAE government to drive a hub and cluster CCS facility is paramount for the achievement of scale and also for the following other reasons.
First, the government will be the biggest beneficiary of such a facility because the latter enables primary industry support, prevents massive job loss, attracts new investments, and is a key enabler for the country’s net zero goals.
Second, a hub and cluster CCS facility requires permits to acquire land and digging to establish CO2 transportation pipelines at scale, which the government is best placed to obtain and implement.
Third, the establishment of the hub and cluster CCS facility may also require policy tweaks. For instance, the government might need to create policies to allow the transportation of CO2 across the borders of the 7 Emirates of the UAE, in order to maximise the capacity of one or few hub and cluster CCS facilities in the country. Further, as CCS becomes mainstream—similar to municipality water and sewage pipelines—there will need to be further CCS-specific accounting practices, standards, laws, and regulations in place.
Finally, another reason for the UAE government to be in the driving seat of such a facility is that doing so offers the UAE the opportunity to be the first government in the world to offer its industries centralised CCS facilities at their doorstep, thus attracting new investments in the country while winning the race to net zero emissions.