Several institutions representing the European gas industry have prepared a letter calling on the co-legislators to fully leverage the potential of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) technologies in the Net Zero Industry Act. According to the co-signatories, CCU technologies represent an array of solutions critical for the achievement of the EU climate and energy ambitions as they will notably support the realisation of EU hydrogen goals and represent a crucial outlet for CO2 captured from all sources.
As such, CCU technologies should be considered – along with CCS – in the list of strategic net-zero technologies contributing to the European Net Zero goals. It will allow CCU projects to benefit from the priority status towards national authorities to fully unleash their potential for emission reductions and carbon circularity while maintaining and enhancing the skilled technical workforce in Europe.
The signatories recalled that CCU technologies are not only recognised in the 6th IPCC Assessment Report as important technologies to mitigate climate change but are also promoted in a series of recent EU legislative efforts, but they are also included in the RED III, FuelEU Maritime and ReFuelEU Aviation proposals, by defining mandatory targets
for CCU-derived fuels (for example, Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin, RFNBO) in order to reduce emissions from hard-to-abate sectors. They are also included in the proposal of RED II related Delegated Acts where a methodology to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings for CCU-derived fuels is defined.
Or, in the Sustainable Carbon Cycles Communication, CCU, CCS and carbon removals are
qualified as “innovative clean technologies” with a dedicated target of “at least 20 per cent of the carbon used in the chemical and plastic products should be from sustainable non-fossil sources by 2030”.
All of this proves the importance of CCU technologies that can increase the resilience of the EU economy and its industrial systems by durably storing CO2 or solid carbon in material and reusing captured carbon as an alternative carbon feedstock to produce fuels, chemicals and materials as replacements of fossil-based equivalents.
