The first pilot installation for carbon capture for smelters was officially inaugurated earlier today. Aker Carbon Capture provided the Mobile Test Unit which was connected to an Elkem plant for production of ferrosilicon and microsilica in Rana, Norway.
Over 10 companies and organizations have been involved in the project, with SINTEF, Alcoa and Norcem among them. Expectations are for 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 to be captured throughout the network of collaborating companies when the full implementation is complete.
“The Mobile Test Unit was built in 2008 and has continuously been upgraded in accordance with our latest technology developments. Aker Carbon Capture can therefore offer our customers a unique opportunity to test our technology at their site and de-risk the project prior to a possible full-scale implementation,” says Valborg Lundegaard, Chief Executive Officer at Aker Carbon Capture.
”The world needs more metals and other materials to succeed with the green transition, but we also need to achieve lower global CO2 emissions. Carbon capture can potentially contribute significantly towards our global climate roadmap of reducing emissions towards net zero while growing supplies to the green transition,” says Elkem’s CEO Helge Aasen.
The Elkem plant in Rana, Norway became operations in 1989 and currently has 140 workers who are focused on producing ferrosilicon products and microsilica using a hydropower source of energy.
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This first test is being run within the R&D CO2 HUB Nord project, which is set to run for a total of two years and is financed by Climit Demo. Its goal is to measure and verify the performance of the technology in real-world conditions where industrial gases are used in smelters and other process industries. Should it prove to be successful it will act as the preparation phase before rolling it out to full-scale plant carbon capture.
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