Fraunhofer: ACCSESS - Carbon Capture Usage and Storage
Providing access to cost-efficient, replicable, safe and flexible CCUS - Project ACCSESS
ACCSESS Project Consortium
The ACCSESS project is about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as well as Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS). The latter term naturally evolved in the progression of the technology.
The idea is quite straightforward: Industries that cannot be turned emission-free in the very short term must receive support to continue functioning without releasing excessive greenhouse gases. The cement industry is a very prominent example as not only due to the energy demand used to produce cement but also from the production process itself, CO2 is released in the air (see BBC for good Figure). In 2015 the cement industry alone was responsible for 8% of worldwide CO2 emissions.
– So what do? Short answer: Carbon Capture and Storage. –
Carbon Capture Demonstrator at Pulp an Paper Mill (run by Stora Enso, Gävle, Sweden)
Easy formula: Capture all CO2 emitted from the production process + fuel production process only with renewable energy = all good and climate neutral!
As you may guess, it’s all not that easy. This is why ACCSESS was set up. Including a variety of other sectors the project aims to test and verify a broad selection of CC(U)S technologies at TRL 7, including economics, including logistics, including society! Ambitious but important and worthwhile - without CC(U)S the agreed emission reductions from the Paris agreement are unlikely to be met.
Fraunhofer (us) are responsible for a large part of the societal acceptance part and the connection to cities and authorities. Also really not an easy task. While some cities and authorities in northern Europe are leading the way (acknowledging Zurich through eth and Neustark as project partners), others have little to no engagement with the technology.
This cries out for a fruitful interdisciplinary research approach right? Here we come :)!
Until the end of my involvement in the project, I perceived our/Fraunhofer’s mission as ‘scientists of the in-between’ - understanding the city and societal sphere while being able to grasp the main functions, benefits and challenges of the engineering behind - and then trying to bridge and translate. To me it was a highly rewarding and interesting time until I transitioned out of the project beginning 2024 due to the onset of URBREATH.
On a personal note: I remember my time during civil service in 2009 at Young Friends of the Earth in Stuttgart and the big anti-CCS campaign that was going on at the time. Just checked - that’s still up to datehttps://www.bund.net/klimawandel/ccs/.
Official Synopsis: EU-funded ACCSESS consortium is dedicated to developing and easening the uptake of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies. The aim is to contribute to a climate-neutral Europe by reducing emissions and facilitating the production of climate-neutral products across various sectors: Pulp and Paper, Cement, Waste to Energy, and Biorefining. Through the demonstration of cost-efficient CO2 capture and utilization in industrial settings, ACCSESS strives to offer safe, flexible, and replicable CCUS solutions. The project seeks to establish pathways for transporting and storing CO2 captured from European industries, particularly in the evolving infrastructure of the North Sea region.
Fraunhofer’s main contributions to the ACCSESS project involves societal integration efforts for CCUS. This includes collaborating with environmental authorities on regulatory guidelines and engaging stakeholders through qualitative methodologies. Fraunhofer provides information packages and contribute to a CCUS handbook for sustainable urban development for an easy low-threshold uptake of CCUS.
Links:
BBC Article on CCS and Cement, 2018
EU CORDIS Database with stats on ACCSESS
“The emergent integrated network structure of scientific research”, Dworkin et. al 2019, PLOSone
Pulp and Paper Mill as CCS pilot site run by Stora Enso
BUND/Friends of the Earth Germany Campaign against CCS
Review Article on CCS, Dubey&Arora, 2022, J. of Cleaner Prod., Elsevier
