About – Accsess

About ACCSESS

Providing access to cost-efficient, replicable, safe and flexible CCS

ACCSESS is a four-year Horizon 2020 project that aims to demonstrate technologies and produce tools and plans that enable widespread CCS deployment in Europe

Responding to the need for cost-effective CDR

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, which clearly showed that we will need to act drastically in order to achieve climate neutrality.

The EU’s Green Deal also set historical climate ambitions to

reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels), and
achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

In order to achieve these goals, it won’t be enough to significantly reduce our current and future greenhouse gas emissions, we will also need to remove excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

CO₂ is the primary greenhouse gas. Hard-to-abate industries are responsible for significant amounts of the overall CO₂ emissions.

CO₂ capture, transport and storage (CCS) can significantly cut CO₂ emissions from these hard-to-abate sectors.

When applied to flue gases from burning biomass, CCS provides a way to not only cut emissions, but also remove CO₂ from the atmosphere (known as “carbon dioxide removal” – CDR).

This is feasible in several industry sectors, including biomass-fuelled cement production, pulp and paper, waste-to-energy and biorefineries. These four energy-intensive sectors in Europe are the focus of the ACCSESS project.

Contributing to a climate-neutral Europe by 2050

Interest in CCS is growing, and vast CO₂storage capacity under the North Sea is already available. However, if CCS is to be a relevant technology for reducing our CO₂emissions at the scale needed, several barriers must be addressed and its deployment must be accelerated. This is exactly what ACCSESS aims to facilitate.

Learn more about the main motivations of the ACCSESS project and how it aims to contribute to achieving a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 in the two blog posts below:

Introducing ACCSESS: Addressing drastic CO₂ emissions cuts and removal in four key industries

The first part of “Introducing ACCSESS” explores how the project seeks to remove current and future CO2 emissions from four industrial sectors.

Introducing ACCSESS: Redefining CCS

The second part of “Introducing ACCSESS” focuses on how the project has redefined “CCS” to reflect its work with accelerating CCS deployment and innovation.

Contributing to a climate-neutral Europe by 2050

The project concept for ACCSESS redefines “CCS” as “CO₂capture, chains and society” in order to reflect the key challenges that need to be addressed for CCS to be successfully implemented across Europe.

CO2 capture, use and integration

Test CO₂ capture and CO₂ use at TRL7 and integrate capture technologies in industrial installations in the most energy and cost-efficient manner, with a focus on industries that partly or fully emit biogenic CO₂. This will reduce costs and enable net Carbon Dioxide Removal from the atmosphere. CO₂ capture testing will address three industrial sectors (pulp and paper, waste to energy and cement), while CO₂ use testing addresses the cement sector. CO₂ capture integration addresses: pulp and paper, cement, waste to energy and biorefineries.

CCUS chains and clusters

Develop and improve CCUS chains from continental Europe and the Baltic area to the North Sea, to provide access routes to the flexible, ship-based offshore CO₂ transport and storage infrastructures that are under development in the North Sea, such as the Northern Lights (represented by EQN).

Societal integration

Engage and inform stakeholders about CCUS, its societal benefits at large, and the marginal additional cost of the products produced with CCUS. The aim is to create an understanding and acceptance among cities and citizens of the solutions that CCUS can contribute in the development of the low-carbon society that is necessary to combat global warming. For CCUS to be successful and contribute to curbing CO₂ emissions at scale, it needs to become an integrated and obvious part of society and its infrastructure. In this context, a main hypothesis in ACCSESS is that cities striving for sustainable urban development can become drivers for CCUS implementation. Bringing complementarity to this city-oriented approach, this part of ACCSESS will also synthesize the project results as packages to foster CCUS technology and business model replicability.