Standards Development

Scope

This technical committee will deal with standardization of activities in the field of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, transportation, utilization and storage (CCUS) as well as activities in the field of carbon accounting.

Standardization includes but is not limited to the full lifecycle of CCUS projects (e.g. design, construction, commissioning, operation / use, inspection and maintenance, abandonment / end of life) and will cover discipline specific (occupational) health, safety and environmental aspects, risk management, lifecycle assessment, CO2 composition and measurement, quantification and verification, and monitoring.

Standardization also includes developing a harmonized carbon accounting system, building on established calculation methodologies, frameworks and chain-of-custody models to enable unambiguous, reliable and transparent business-to-business, business-to-government and business-to-consumer communication about the trade of CO2 and possibly other greenhouse gases either physically (e.g. CO2 as commodity / raw material) or administratively (e.g. carbon credits, carbon take back obligation).

Purpose

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), CO2 capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is an important emissions reduction technology that can be applied across the energy system. CCUS technologies involve the capture of CO2 from fuel combustion or industrial processes, the transport of this CO2 via ship or pipeline, and either its use as a resource to create valuable products or services or its permanent storage deep underground in geological formations. CCUS technologies also provide the foundation for carbon removal or "negative emissions" when the CO2 comes from bio-based processes or directly from the atmosphere.

Highlights of IEA’s ‘A new era for CCUS’ as included in CCUS in Clean Energy Transitions – Part of Energy Technology Perspectives (flagship report, September 2020) are:

• CCUS so far has not lived up to its promise. Although its relevance for reaching climate goals has long been recognised, deployment has been slow: annual CCUS investment has consistently accounted for less than 0,5 % of global investment in clean energy and efficiency technologies.

• Stronger climate targets and investment incentives are injecting new momentum into CCUS. Plans for more than 30 new integrated CCUS facilities have been announced since 2017, mostly in the United States and Europe, although projects are also planned in Australia, China, Korea, the Middle East and New Zealand. Projects at advanced stages of planning represent a total estimated investment of more than USD 27 billion, almost double the investment in projects commissioned since 2010.

• CCUS technologies offer significant strategic value in the transition to net-zero:

⎯ CCUS can be retrofitted to existing power and industrial plants, which could otherwise still emit 8 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2050;

⎯ CCUS can tackle emissions in sectors where other technology options are limited, such as in the production of cement, iron and steel or chemicals, and to produce synthetic fuels for long-distance transport (notably aviation);

⎯ CCUS is an enabler of least-cost low-carbon hydrogen production;

⎯ CCUS can remove CO2 from the atmosphere by combining it with bioenergy or direct air capture to balance emissions that are unavoidable or technically difficult to abate.

• The Covid-19 crisis represents both a threat and an opportunity for CCUS: the economic downturn will almost certainly impact investment plans and lower oil prices are undermining the attractiveness of using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. But CCUS is in a stronger position to contribute to economic recoveries than after the global financial crisis. A decade of experience in developing projects and the recent uptick in activity means that there are a number of “shovel-ready” projects with potential to double CCUS deployment by 2025.

According to the European Commission’s website, CCS has significant potential to help mitigate climate change both in Europe and internationally, particularly in countries with large reserves of fossil fuels and a fast-increasing energy demand. They highlight the following aspects:

• Ensuring safe and environmentally sound CCS: The environmental integrity of CCS is the Commission's overriding concern. This is partly a matter of ensuring that the CO2 captured and stored remains isolated from the atmosphere in the long term; and partly about ensuring that the capture, transport and storage elements do not present other risks to human health or ecosystems. Although the components of CCS are all known and deployed at commercial scale, integrated systems are new. A clear regulatory framework is thus required, and the EU's CCS Directive provides this.

• High cost a barrier to uptake: The cost of capture and storage remains an important barrier to the takeup of CCS. The capture component in particular is an expensive part of the process. As flue gas from coal or gas-fired power plants contains relatively low concentrations of CO2 (10 % - 12 % for coal and around 3 % - 6 % for gas), the amount of energy needed to capture the gas makes the process costly.

• CCS under 2030 policy framework for climate and energy: The Commission's proposal for a 2030 climate and energy policy framework acknowledges the role of CCS in reaching the EU's long-term emissions reduction goal. Significant emissions cuts are needed in the EU's energy and carbon-intensive industries. As theoretical limits of efficiency are being reached and process-related emissions are unavoidable in some sectors, CCS may be the only option available to reduce direct emissions from industrial processes on the scale needed in the longer term. In the power sector, CCS could be a key technology for fossil fuel-based generation. It could help balance an electricity system with increasing shares of variable renewable energy. To ensure that CCS can be deployed in the 2030 timeframe, increased R&D efforts and commercial demonstration are essential over the next decade. A supportive EU framework will be necessary through continued and strengthened use of auctioning revenues.

In the Net-Zero Industry Act, a key part of the European Green Deal Industrial Plan, the European Commission proposes a framework of measures to accelerate Europe’s green transition. The Act addresses the relevance of facilitating and enabling CCS projects, including enhancing the availability of CO2 storage sites. In addition, the Act states:

• Carbon capture and storage require a cross-border, single market approach to be an effective solution for industries in all Member States, including in those Member States with no CO2 storage capacity, and is therefore best addressed in a coordinated way at EU level.

• To scale up the technology and expand its leading manufacturing capacities, the EU needs to develop a forward-looking supply of permanent geological CO2 storage sites permitted in accordance with Directive 2009/31/EU 36 . By defining a Union target of 50 million tonnes of annual operational CO2 injection capacity by 2030, in line with the expected capacities needed in 2030, the relevant sectors can coordinate their investments towards a European Net-Zero CO2 transport and storage value chain that industries can use to decarbonise their operations. This initial deployment will also support further CO2 storage in a 2050 perspective. According to the Commission’s estimates, the Union could need to capture up to 550 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2050 to meet the net zero objective 37 , including for carbon removals. Such a first industrial-scale storage capacity will de-risk investments into the capturing of CO2 emissions as important tool to reach climate neutrality.

Considering IEA’s report, European Commission’s policy, and also the many ‘decarbonization / low-carbon emissions’ plans presented by several industries and companies, it is now the right moment to intensify standardization activities. To date, standardization activities take place at international level with a focus on CCS, managed by ISO/TC 265 ‘Carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and geological storage’. In addition, ISO/TC 207 ‘Environmental management’ addresses greenhouse gas emission related activities, especially subcommittees SC 5 ‘Life cycle assessment’ and SC 7 ‘Greenhouse gas management and related activities’.

Following a consultation among European experts participating in ISO/TC 265/WG 4 ‘Quantification and verification’, communications with several associations and a poll among participants in research projects, European stakeholders expressed the need for (increased) European coordination and cooperation in the field of CCUS standardization activities as well as that of carbon accounting. It was acknowledged that CCUS and carbon accounting are global issues in which international standards should be preferred over homegrown European standards. However, it was also recognized that there might be topics that serve a particular European need or for which European stakeholders could first agree with a European standard to be offered to ISO for transforming into an international standard. A dedicated CEN technical committee offers several opportunities for European stakeholders, including but not limited to:

• adoption of published ISO standards as European standards; all CEN members (representing 34 countries) are obliged to adopt European standards as their national standards and to withdraw possible conflicting home-grown national standards;

• parallel development of new EN-ISO standards (under so-called Vienna Agreement) to assess if these standards also satisfy the needs and expectation of European stakeholders while not conflicting European regulations;

• coordinated input, or at least exchange of views, with respect to ISO related activities as committee’s business plans, new work item proposals, and draft international standards;

• development of home-grown European standards for topics that serve particular European needs (which might be expressed via a standardization request from the European Commission) or for topics that could not yet reach consensus at a global level (and for which a European standard can serve as starting point).

European standardization has also proven to be an effective tool to support European legislation and policy. Standards can be developed either as alternative for legislation (i.e. self-regulation) or to support legislation (e.g. presumption of conformity). A new CEN technical committee for CO2 capture, transportation, utilization, storage and carbon accounting would fulfil this role in this emerging field of activities.