Colossal quarry CO2 capture scheme ready to ramp up in 2021
THE head of the tech team behind an ambitious project to decarbonise the CO2-heavy quarrying industry - from the Humber - has told how 2021 could be a key year.
Oxford University spin-out Origen is working with Singleton Birch to bring forward a pilot plant for a process that could revolutionise a $50 billion global industry - understood to be responsible for 1 per cent of all CO2 emissions.
The development was first publicised by the lime-producing giant as part of The Waterline Summit in October. There Martin Haworth, managing director of Birch Energy, part of the group of businesses based at Melton Ross, stated “we are ready to change the future of worldwide lime production, starting in the Humber region”.
It centres around new kilns based on oxy-fuel flash calciner technology and pitches one of the region’s oldest industrial operators at the forefront of addressing future challenges.
Ben Turner is chief executive of Origen, and after a “period under the radar” working on technology design and team-building, he sees the new year as a seminal period. “This is a really exciting project and it is fantastic that Singleton Birch is wanting to partner with us,” he said. “It is a risk on their part, they are a well established, credible business and we are a start-up business with unproven technology, but the common view held by both parties is that the technology has the capability to decarbonise the whole of the lime industry.”
He told how Origen’s founder and chief technology officer Tim Kruger, has been involved in decarbonisation for several years. In the late Noughties he was looking at different ways CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere, settling on a route to use lime.
“The ambition and vision of the business is to reset the atmosphere,” Mr Turner said, having joined to bring commercial leadership after 10 years in the City.
“I got involved two years ago, and we had the great drive and vision, but the questions I asked were ‘how?’ and ‘what’s the road map for delivery?’.
“Tim had built up a strong relationship with Singleton Birch through his interest in lime. He had been in close contact with them on several occasions and through the summer of this year we really started to make a whole lot of headway. And it got to the point where Martin is now presenting on it.
“We have this really big, grand ambition of atmospheric CO2 removal, but there are stepping stones to getting there.Trialling this 3,000 tonne plant at Singleton Birch, running it, optimising it and making it completely applicable to the industry is what we are doing, with a view to some other research and development. Then being able to create a fully looped CO2 removal cycle where we can draw down from the atmosphere, that’s where we are.”
No stranger to numbers, having worked as a trader and analyst for a decade, he is clear on the green opportunity, and what is required to get there.
“The lime industry is a massive industry, globally. It is responsible for one per cent of global emissions, and a $40 to $50 billion revenue operation.
“Origen is raising capital, speaking to existing investors and we have got some really strong interest from new investors.
“We’re always keen to look out for strategic-minded investors, people able to come in and support the business, either with capital or or introductions and expertise.
“With the combination of capital and a government grant, the ambition is to have this plant operational by the end of 2021, and through 2022 it will be about operating, learning and refining, with a view to scaling up to 50,000 tonnes - which is what we feel is the right size for this equipment.
“From there we create lime with zero carbon emissions. Then we can look at a roll-out across the industry. That then allows us to develop the other part of the technology, and use that lime to draw down CO2 and permanently store it.”
The Humber has clear benefits for that, around the quarry which sits in the estuary’s near hinterland. Mr Turner’s mother hails from
Hull, but it is the region’s carbon capture and storage that is more of an attraction - and he is keen to see government backing in the £1 billion ‘competition’ currently being considered.
“When you look at the Humber - a bit of a home-coming for me - there are a whole host of projects to decarbonise industry and that’s fantastic. “We need this to go ahead because it is all well and good capturing CO2 from the air, but you need somewhere you can safely and permanently store it. I’m hoping more of these projects like ours, like C-Capture at Drax, really drives this agenda and the support needed from government to be able to deliver at scale.
“The lime industry is a difficult one to decarbonise. In the lime production process a lot of CO2 is emitted from the raw substance breaking down, the limestone. When you produce a tonne of lime, a tonne of CO2 is emitted. 75 per cent comes from the breakdown of limestone, the raw feedstock, and 25 per cent from the combustion of natural gas or coal - the industry has a really quirky problem.
“To our knowledge there is no other technology that keeps all the CO2 in the way we believe our technology can, and that’s where Singleton Birch’s interest stems from. “They recognise with the production of CO2 and a lot of emissions they are going to start facing a sizeable carbon bill and need to do something about that.”