Two years ago at the COP, countries around the world are committed to gradually do without fossil fuels which are the great officials of global warming. Unless the chimneys of polluting factories are equipped with carbon dioxide (CO2), technologies that interest manufacturers, but which are far from miracle solutions. These are expensive and are criticized by environmental NGOs.
In a huge hangar, near Lyon, activates a whole ecosystem of researchers whose objective is to decarbonize European factories. White blouse on the shoulders and protective glasses on the nose, Patrice Font stands in front of a series of machines, covered with large tubes and metal pipes. It is, in a reduced model, a system that could equip future coal power plants or waste incinerators to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) in the atmosphere.
“” There are a lot of new power plants that are still built and therefore the idea is to propose a technology With which we can continue to use coal, produce heat, electricity. On the other hand, CO2 is no longer rejected in the atmosphere “Explains the project manager at IFP Energies Nouvelles (IFPEN).
Concretely, the combustion of coal is optimized so that, at the exit of the factory chimney, smoke contains more than 95% of CO2. It is then possible to transport this gas to store it at more than 800 meters under the ground. “” For Europe, in 2050, 450 million tonnes of CO2 per year will have to be captured, stored or used if you want to reach carbon neutrality “, Details Raphaël Huyghe responsible for the CO2 capture and storage program at IFPEN. Almost three -quarters of the emissions from the France over a year. But behind this beautiful promise, few projects are born, he admits: ” This technology today has a cost. Industrialists must integrate this cost. It is therefore necessary to support this sector so that it can have economic viability. »»
And for the moment, the capture and the storage of carbon is mainly pushed and funded by the petrogazières industries, according to the Action Climate network, which brings together several NGO environmental. “” This guarantees this industry the “business as usual” and to be able to “tint from green”. But these are technologies that have not yet fully demonstrated their effectiveness. With the risk that public funding dedicated to the ecological transition to finance these technologies instead of financed other levers of decarbonation. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that the capture of carbon will only come to solve the problem of carbon. This does not adjust all the others environmental problems linked to energies, whether in the energy sector as in the industry sector “Consulates Aurélie Brunstein, advocacy manager within the network.
IPCC scientists still consider that the capture and carbon storage is one of the solutions to decarbonize certain very polluting industrial sectors such as cement plant, steel industry, chemical industry. But only when there is no other solution.
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