INTERVIEW: A New Facility That Could Be Key to Net-Zero Shipping Is Under Construction

STRATOS rendering. Imge credit: Carbon Engineering / 1PointFive

A first-of-its-kind plant for the direct air capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide is now under construction in Texas, USA. The marine shipping industry is one of the key sectors identified as being able to benefit from the facility.

Moreover, using DAC may be one of only a very few ways that marine shipping will be able to fully achieve its net zero ambition.

Known as STRATOS, the plant's construction is being led by carbon capture platform 1PointFive – a subsidiary of Oxy's Low Carbon Ventures business - alongside DAC technology specialists Carbon Engineering, and engineering firm Worley.

Following the groundbreaking ceremony in Texas at the end of April, initial startup of the plant is expected in mid-2025 and once fully operational is expected to capture up to 500,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

The DAC technology being utilized by STRATOS has been under development by Carbon Engineering in Canada for several years.

"It was a fantastic event that brought together over 200 people. It is very, very exciting to see construction actually underway," said Anna Stukas, VP of Business Development, Carbon Engineering, who recently talked to Ship & Bunker about the latest developments with STRATOS.

The partners hope that STRATOS will be the first of many such facilities, and 1PointFive has ambitions to eventually deploy over 100 DAC plants worldwide by 2035.

"This first facility will not just be a milestone in size, but a cornerstone of learning, forming how we optimize Direct Air Capture plants going forward," said 1PointFive President Michael Avery.

Carbon Removal vs Reductions

Interest in carbon capture has grown considerably in recent years, having progressed from being a 'non-starter' to the point where last year its role in helping Shipping meet emissions reduction targets was discussed at IMO Headquarters as part of the 79th meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC).

A key shift in thinking on the role of carbon capture, and particularly DAC, is that net zero can not be fully reached using carbon reduction efforts alone. Some level of carbon removal will be needed alongside that.

Anna Stukas, VP of Business Development, Carbon Engineering. Image Credit: Carbon Engineering

"Even so called zero emission fuels are not actually zero emission when considered on a lifecycle basis. Nothing is perfectly zero emission," Stukas told Ship & Bunker.

"It is now recognized that carbon removal will be necessary to counterbalance residual emissions, so even if we transition to completely non-fossil fuel those residual emissions will need to be cleaned up."

"The Science Based Targets Initiative has a number of good principles out there on what the balance needs to be for reductions vs removals. While there are variations depending on the industry, their general baseline for net zero is 90% reductions and 10% removals."

This approach subtly changes the thinking on how we get to zero. Rather than viewing it as a single reduction target of 'getting to zero', Stukas says companies are starting to look at reaching net zero in terms of twin targets.

"We're seeing companies not only wanting that downward curve as they reduce their emissions, but also wanting an upward curve that has their targets for integration of removals into their plan," she says.

"Over time, in parallel, you're increasing your emissions reductions, you're increasing your investments in carbon removal, and then ultimately they meet at that net zero year where your reductions and your removals balance out to zero.

"So it's really important to understand that every time we're thinking about removals to remember that this isn't an excuse to keep doing business as usual. We need both to get to zero."

Too Easy?

Removing CO2 directly from the air using machines is anything but easy, and technology to do this cost effectively has been a long time coming.

While complex, a key attraction of DAC is that all the technology is self-contained at a remote location and completely agnostic in terms of who then benefits from the carbon removals.

So if a ship uses DAC to reduce its emissions footprint there is nothing else the shipowner needs to do other than purchase the carbon removal credit. No modifications to the ship or its operational profile are needed.

Such ease is in jarring contrast to the headline messaging on shipping's journey to zero - namely that it will be an extremely long, complex, and costly process.

Ironically, a key barrier for the uptake of DAC in the shipping industry may be that it is too easy.

"We recognize that many organizations have never purchased carbon removal before," Stukas told me.

"If you're part of the procurement team of an airline or a shipping company, it's much easier to wrap your head around buying an alternative fuel because it still looks and feels like the conventional fuels that you've been buying, it's just a slightly different version of it. There's still a tangible transfer of assets.

"By contrast, buying carbon removal credits, it's very different. You're buying a certificate that proves you have funded the net removal of a specific amount of carbon dioxide. It is a bit of an esoteric concept that you need to wrap your head around. Not only is there a whole new procurement process, but many of these companies haven't even thought, well, where does the budget line item for something like that go?"

As one can imagine, that same level of disconnect with current business practice transfers right through to the customers of a company, customers who will ultimately be paying for the emissions reduction.

"Once you've understood how to include removals as a company, a key question becomes how do you ensure that for those removals, and indeed the low carbon fuels you're purchasing, that the environmental benefits of those purchases are being appropriately recognized across the supply chain?

"If you're a shipping company, thinking about if you're buying permanent carbon removal as part of your portfolio of solutions to get to net zero, how can you convey that benefit to the organizations or the companies who are utilizing your shipping services, for example, to reduce the carbon footprint of the goods that they are transporting? Thankfully there are starting to be some really interesting tools out there that can help with that, such as CarbonSig."

It remains to be seen as to what extent the use of DAC ultimately plays in shipping's journey to zero, but the signs so far all indicate it could be an important one.

Indeed, even though projects such as STRATOS are in their infancy, Stukas revealed that marine shipping is already among the sectors pre-purchasing the carbon removal credits.

"We've certainly seen interest in our technology from across the shipping industry, she said.

"In fact, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, as part of a group that includes other industry leaders such as Swiss Re and Boston Consulting Group, have announced an advanced purchase of almost 200,000 tonnes of permanent carbon dioxide removal from a portfolio of carbon removal projects that includes STRATOS. We're very pleased to see our technology included in that portfolio."