This Week in Engineering explores the latest in engineering from academia, government and industry.
Episode Summary:
Decarbonization of the economy is a primary goal of nations worldwide to reduce the effects of global warming. Efforts so far have focused on reducing the burning of fossil fuels through alternates like hydrogen, solar, wind and nuclear energy. But demand for oil and gas are still increasing, and will do so for some years before new technologies render them obsolete. And oil and gas production themselves are large carbon emitters. Paris-based Technip Energies, an oil industry process engineering firm has partnered with Vancouver-based Svante, a CO2 remediation technology company, to develop carbon sequestration systems for the oil industry in turnkey packages. The Svante technology uses a proprietary adsorbent with mechanical CO2 extraction and recycling system to pull CO2 out of flue gas to be compressed and stored or reused. A candidate project is a new, very large gas field near Abu Dhabi.
Toyota has been notably quiet during one of the most revolutionary periods in the automotive industry: the switch to electrification. Many analysts attribute this to Toyota’s very public experiments with hydrogen fuel cells, notably the Mirai series of small sedans, but in fact the company has funded significant research into battery technology, notably solid-state batteries with Panasonic. But a new announcement this week suggests that Toyota may be moving in a new direction. The company will create a $1.3 billion lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility near Greensboro North Carolina, with an initial production capacity sufficient to support 200,000 vehicles, rising to 1.2 million vehicles per year when fully completed. The operation is in close proximity to Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky assembly complex, and the company has not ruled out selling batteries as a Tier 1 supplier to other companies. Does this mean that Toyota is shifting away from fuel cell technology? The company has not announced any slowdown in hydrogen technology development and may now pursue both carbon free technologies simultaneously.
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Transcript of this week’s show:
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Segment 1: For engineers working on CO2 reduction in industrial processes, there are only two ways to do it: avoid carbon inputs entirely, or capture and sequester CO2 emissions postproduction. While the majority of technology news focuses on the replacement of fossil fuels with electricity, the reality is that the oil industry isn’t going away any time soon and will remain a major producer of CO2 in fuel production. But the impact of fossil fuel production may be mitigated significantly with new technology.
Paris-based Technip Energies, a process engineering company specializing in fluid transfer in the energy industry and Vancouver-based carbon capture technology developer Svante have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to develop Svante’s solid sorbent carbon capture technology into integrated systems from concept to project delivery. Carbon-capture facilities will use Svante’s solid sorbent technology to capture carbon directly from post-combustion flue gases as an aftertreatment process, requiring no fundamental change in fuel or combustion technology.
Svante’s “solid sorbent” is a proprietary, active adsorbent nano material with a very high surface area. According to the company, a volume of adsorbent the size of a sugar cube has a surface area the size of a football field. A rotary mechanical contactor is used in a proprietary process to capture, release and regenerate the adsorbent. The output is pipeline grade carbon dioxide. Although the process was originally designed for the cement, primary metals, ammonia and hydrogen industries, the association with Technip will allow the Svante technology to be applied to oil and gas production.
Technip has been awarded a contract by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) for Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) for the large Ghasha offshore mega project in the United Arab Emirates including the integration of carbon capture into the development. The field is expected to produce over 1.5 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas per day in addition to condensate and oil. The start of production is expected in 2025, ramping up to full production by the end of the decade.
Segment 2: With the growing interest in electric vehicles triggered by Elon Musk and Tesla, traditional automakers are rushing to produce electric vehicles themselves. Volkswagen in particular, sideswiped by the nasty diesel emissions scandal, has gone all in with multiple EV plants and half a dozen EV models that cumulatively now outsell Tesla products in Europe.
That’s not surprising for VW, which is the world’s biggest automaker by volume, but it’s a close race, and where is Toyota? The venerable Japanese firm has been widely assumed to be betting on hydrogen fuel cells as their carbon free future automotive technology, but the firm has been working on solid-state batteries and EV technology, notably with a billion-dollar joint venture with Panasonic.
Some experts have argued that Toyota would enter the electric vehicle market when battery costs align, and that opinion may have been confirmed this week with the announcement of a new American venture, Toyota Battery Manufacturing, North Carolina. The new company will open a $1.3 billion battery manufacturing plant near Greensboro North Carolina, which by 2025 will operate four production lines to produce enough lithium-ion batteries for 200,000 vehicles. Facilities are designed to be expandable to at least six production lines capable of supporting up to 1.2 million vehicles per year. The operation is expected to employ 1750 people.
Toyota has committed to using 100% renewable energy for the project. The investment in the new plant is significant for two reasons: it shows that Toyota will not wait for advanced, solid-state battery technology to mature before entering the electric vehicle market and it suggests that lithium-ion battery technology can now be scaled to be sufficiently cost-effective for profitable volume production. Notably, the Greensboro operation will be an easy drive or rail run to Toyota’s large Kentucky assembly operation.
Is this the beginning of the end for hydrogen fuel cell technology? There is no indication from the company that pure electric vehicles will reduce Toyota’s interest in hydrogen technology at least with current battery technology. But the company’s accelerating interest in EV’s suggest some interesting possibilities. Could we see battery electric vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells as range extenders? It’s an interesting possibility, especially for the American market where long distances between EV charging stations is a serious inhibitor for many consumers. We’ll be watching with interest.
