Woodside Petroleum has announced a partnership agreement with two climate tech companies that will help it convert CO2 into “useful products”.
LanzaTech and ReCarbon will support the Australian oil company in exploring the potential for making a profit from capturing carbon.
The project is already started its initial design and engineering phase and will be tested at a facility close to Perth, Western Australia.
The company shared it will explore how carbon dioxide and methane can be turned into “value-added ethanol”.
To achieve this technologies from both companies will be used in a sequence – ReCarbon’s will convert CO2 and methane into a synthesis gas. After that LanzaTech will use its know-how to ferment it into ethanol.
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Woodside also mentioned that if successful, this approach could substantially reduce the need for land and water for the production of ethanol.
Meg O’Neill, CEO of Woodside indicated that they view carbon as “an opportunity” that can help with ethanol production which can in turn can have a wide range of uses in the chemical industry.
Woodside turning to renewables
This new business venture follows Woodside’s commitment to invest $50 billion in renewable energy, carbon capture and hydrogen.
Projects for ammonia, liquified hydrogen and solar have been announced in the last several months.
The goal of the massive investment program will be to gradually reduce Scope 1 and 2 emission to zero by 2050.
By the mid-2020s, the company is hoping to achieve start-up of new energy projects, the export of ammonia from Australia, scale up its carbon offset projects and to have developed CCUS opportunities.
Read more: LanzaTech Merges With AMCI Acquisition, Set To Go Public
