AlwaysFree: Energy Companies Embark On New Carbon Businesses

Major energy companies are embarking on new businesses focusing on carbon sequestration projects and technologies to generate profit and increase their environmental reputations. These efforts can help these big greenhouse gas emitters reduce their carbon footprint and get closer to the Paris Climate Accord targets. The United Nations has said that carbon capture technology is needed to curb the global temperature rise at less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Midstream operator Kinder Morgan has set up a new business unit called Energy Transition Ventures. This division will focus on acquiring assets, developing projects, and providing services related to carbon storage, hydrogen, power generation and transmission, and renewable diesel and gas.

Oilfield service provider Baker Hughes acquired Norwegian-based Compact Carbon Capture (3C). The company plans to market 3C’s solvent-based carbon-capturing system to the oil & gas and shipping industries. 3C claims that its industrial-scale solution can capture up to 250,000 tons/year of CO2.

Exxon has established Low Carbon Solutions LLC that will offer its carbon sequestration technology and produce hydrogen. It will use Exxon’s CO2 storage caverns in the North Sea and the US Gulf Coast. The new business unit will also market emissions-cutting credits from using Exxon’s carbon sequestration projects.

Chevron invested in Blue Planet Systems, a startup that uses CO2 to produce a substitute for limestone used in concrete and other building materials. The two companies also plan pilot projects that commercialize the carbon capture process developed by Blue Planet.

Occidental Petroleum has set up Oxy Low Carbon Ventures to focus on its carbon capture, utilization, and emissions reduction operations. It also formed a joint venture with equity investor Rusheen Capital Management, called 1PointFive, that aims at capturing CO2 directly from the air and injecting it into the ground.

French energy giant Total pledged to spend 10% of its research budget to advance carbon sequestration technologies. It invested in a project to study the costs of capturing and burying underground CO2 emitted by a cement plant operated by LafargeHolcim in Colorado.

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