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Released March 03, 2022 | SUGAR LAND
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Written by Daniel Graeber for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Building on Houston-area ambitions to establish a carbon capture and storage (CCS) hub, Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas) said it was planning a blue-hydrogen production facility at its petrochemicals plant in Baytown, Texas, a facility that would require carbon sequestration.
ExxonMobil has proposed a facility at Baytown that could produce as much as 1 billion cubic feet per day of so-called blue hydrogen. Hydrogen production is described using a color spectrum. The most common form of production now is dubbed "gray" hydrogen, which is processed by running natural gas through a steam reformation process to pull off the hydrogen without capturing the carbon byproduct. Blue hydrogen uses similar methods, but utilizes carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
ExxonMobil said the facility, if completed, would be able to sequester as much as 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year, more than doubling its current capacity. The company suggested this would make Baytown one of the world's largest CCS facilities. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Chemicals Processing Project Database can click here for a report on the CCS project.
"Hydrogen has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in vital sectors of the economy and create valuable, lower-emissions products that support modern life," said Joe Blommaert, the president of ExxonMobil's low carbon solutions business, in a press release. "By helping to activate new markets for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, this project can play an important part in achieving America's lower-emissions aspirations."
ExxonMobil would use the hydrogen to fuel the olefin plant at Baytown. This, the company claimed, could reduce site emissions by up to 30% for CO2.
Apart from gray hydrogen, most processes along the color spectrum are in the niche phase. Green hydrogen, for example, is an emerging process that draws on renewable energy to power an electrolyzer that can split water into its elemental components with almost no emissions whatsoever, but the technology is costly.
Elsewhere, questions have been raised over the perceived environmental benefits from blue hydrogen. A study published last year in the journal Energy Science & Engineering suggested greenhouse gas emissions from blue hydrogen are rather high, particularly when considering fugitive emissions of methane.
"While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for gray hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture," authors Robert Howarth and Mark Jacobson wrote. "Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat, again with our default assumptions."
Nevertheless, ExxonMobil's push is part of a broader trend in the Houston area. Last year, 11 different companies, from Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) (San Ramon, California) to Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO) (San Antonio, Texas), expressed interest in developing large-scale CCS technology in the Houston area. They already are discussing plans to capture as much as 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030.
"The project would form ExxonMobil's initial contribution to a broad, cross-industry effort to establish a Houston carbon capture and storage hub with an initial target of about 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030, and 100 million metric tons by 2040," the U.S. major stated. "Evaluation and planning for the Baytown project are ongoing and, subject to stakeholder support, regulatory permitting and market conditions, a final investment decision is expected in two to three years."
Elsewhere, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the U.S. territorial waters of the Gulf of Mexico could hold about 500 billion metric tons of CO2, the loose equivalent of 130 years of emissions from the nation's industrial and power-generation sectors.
The first large-scale CCS facility was commissioned off the coast of Norway in 1996.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. Follow IIR on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn.
ExxonMobil has proposed a facility at Baytown that could produce as much as 1 billion cubic feet per day of so-called blue hydrogen. Hydrogen production is described using a color spectrum. The most common form of production now is dubbed "gray" hydrogen, which is processed by running natural gas through a steam reformation process to pull off the hydrogen without capturing the carbon byproduct. Blue hydrogen uses similar methods, but utilizes carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
ExxonMobil said the facility, if completed, would be able to sequester as much as 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year, more than doubling its current capacity. The company suggested this would make Baytown one of the world's largest CCS facilities. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Chemicals Processing Project Database can click here for a report on the CCS project.
"Hydrogen has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in vital sectors of the economy and create valuable, lower-emissions products that support modern life," said Joe Blommaert, the president of ExxonMobil's low carbon solutions business, in a press release. "By helping to activate new markets for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, this project can play an important part in achieving America's lower-emissions aspirations."
ExxonMobil would use the hydrogen to fuel the olefin plant at Baytown. This, the company claimed, could reduce site emissions by up to 30% for CO2.
Apart from gray hydrogen, most processes along the color spectrum are in the niche phase. Green hydrogen, for example, is an emerging process that draws on renewable energy to power an electrolyzer that can split water into its elemental components with almost no emissions whatsoever, but the technology is costly.
Elsewhere, questions have been raised over the perceived environmental benefits from blue hydrogen. A study published last year in the journal Energy Science & Engineering suggested greenhouse gas emissions from blue hydrogen are rather high, particularly when considering fugitive emissions of methane.
"While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for gray hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture," authors Robert Howarth and Mark Jacobson wrote. "Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat, again with our default assumptions."
Nevertheless, ExxonMobil's push is part of a broader trend in the Houston area. Last year, 11 different companies, from Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) (San Ramon, California) to Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO) (San Antonio, Texas), expressed interest in developing large-scale CCS technology in the Houston area. They already are discussing plans to capture as much as 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030.
"The project would form ExxonMobil's initial contribution to a broad, cross-industry effort to establish a Houston carbon capture and storage hub with an initial target of about 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030, and 100 million metric tons by 2040," the U.S. major stated. "Evaluation and planning for the Baytown project are ongoing and, subject to stakeholder support, regulatory permitting and market conditions, a final investment decision is expected in two to three years."
Elsewhere, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the U.S. territorial waters of the Gulf of Mexico could hold about 500 billion metric tons of CO2, the loose equivalent of 130 years of emissions from the nation's industrial and power-generation sectors.
The first large-scale CCS facility was commissioned off the coast of Norway in 1996.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. Follow IIR on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn.
