Friday, July 2, 2021

European Efforts in Developing Use for Carbon Dioxide

The European Union (EU) and member states have been providing funding to support the development of using waste streams of carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce products since at lease the early 2010s.  The following provides some information on what they have been funding:

  • In a project called BECCU the Finnish research institute VTT and several Finnish companies are attempting to perform a proof-of-concept for the integrated production of energy, transportation fuels, and specialty chemicals from CO2 being generated by biomass-related industrial activities. Click here for details.
  • In a project called Carbon4PUR a group of mostly German, Dutch, and French research institutes, universities, and companies have been investigating the use CO2 coming from steel manufacturing to make intermediates used in polyurethane production.  The German company Covestro is the project coordinator.  Click here for more information.
  • The Norwegian research institute SINTEF is coordinating a project, called PyroCO2 and involving participants from several European countries, aimed at finding industrial biotechnology processes that can be used to create products from waste streams of CO2.  Click here for more details.
  • The EU project called FReSMe has demonstrated that CO2 captured from steel industry waste streams can be used to produce methanol for use as fuel in ship transportation.  Click here for details.

The four EU and member state-funded projects referenced above suggest to me that the EU considers that utilizing CO2 to produce products can be an important strategy for reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.  These four projects represent some, but my no means all, of the EU’s efforts related to utilizing CO2 in ways that prevent CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.  A website maintained by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research provides information and updates on activities related to utilizing CO2 and preventing it from being emitted into the atmosphere.  Click here to go to this website.

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