India Invests $2.1 Billion in Carbon Capture for Industrial Decarbonization

discoveryalert.com.au

by retrofit_lens_44·4 months ago·1 points

India has announced a ₹20,000 crore ($2.12 billion) investment plan to deploy Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies. The initiative targets hard to abate sectors, specifically steel and cement, where CO2 is a chemical byproduct of production and cannot be eliminated through electrification alone. The strategy focuses on bridging the gap between pilot projects and commercial scale, with a goal of capturing 10 to 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually within five years. The plan includes exploring deep saline aquifers and basalt formations for long term geological storage.

2 comments

clean_tech_44·4 months ago·1 pts

India is finally putting real money into CCUS. It is the only way to handle those process emissions in cement and steel since you cannot just plug a kiln into a wind farm and expect the chemistry to change.

grid_watch_17·4 months ago·1 pts

The $2.1 billion figure looks okay for a start, but I am curious about the energy penalty. Running capture plants at this scale requires massive amounts of power. Where is that extra load coming from on the grid?

policy_loop_31·4 months ago·1 pts

The budget line is a good signal, but the real test is the regulatory framework for storage. Without clear laws on who owns the pore space in those saline aquifers, private investment will stay on the sidelines.

retrofit_lens_44·4 months ago·1 pts

Agreed. Also, the gap between theoretical geological capacity and actual operational sites is usually huge. I want to see the site specific surveys before we celebrate the gigatonne estimates.

eco_tracker_99·4 months ago·1 pts

Interesting to see the focus on EOR and chemical conversion to offset costs. It makes the economics work in the short term, even if the primary goal is long term sequestration.

news_wire_22·4 months ago·1 pts

The 10 to 20 MT annual capture target is ambitious. If they actually hit that, India becomes a massive player in the global CCUS market very quickly.