Technology
Japanese high-tech
companies are the front runners in the technology to recover CO2 in the world.
Mitsubishi Heavy developed a new plant that can recover 3,000 tons of CO2 per
day, six times bigger capacity than the existing recovery plant. The company
has been operating a plant with a daily recovery capacity of 500 tons in Mobile
of the state of Alabama of the U.S. A recovery plant consists of CO2 recovery
equipment and large-scale compressors, etc., and recovers only CO2 from gas
emissions using a special absorbing solution. If a nuclear power plant with an
output of 1 million kW is replaced by a coal-fired thermal power plant, 12,000
tons of CO2 will be emitted daily.
In addition to the
recovery technology, Mitsubishi Heavy is developing a technology to pour CO2
into an aging oilfield to regenerate it. Aging oilfields mostly have crude oil
of high viscosity, and increasing the fluidity of the residual oil with the
help of poured CO2 can regenerate them. At the same time, should an oil layer
exist below the bedrock, it is possible to increase the pressure by pouring CO2
for higher production efficiency. According to International Energy Agency, the
world capacity of coal-fired thermal generation plants will increase two times
over the level in 2008 to 1,400 million kW in 2030, and reduction of CO2
emissions by dint of recovery and storage will reach 8,000 million kW by 2050. Other
Japanese leading high-tech companies like IHI, Hitachi, and Toshiba are
actively developing the CO2 recovery business both at home and abroad.
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