When removing CO2 is no longer a problem and becomes an opportunity
According to the recent Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report presented in Copenhagen by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) to face the irreversible effects of climate change greenhouse gas emissions need to fall as much as 70% around the world by 2050, and to zero by 2100. Implementing such reductions poses substantial technological, economic, social, and institutional challenges. In this context, BFS blue Enterprises has developed a unique technology to capture, neutralise and transform industrial CO2 emissions into products with applications in a range of markets including energy, pharmaceuticals, nutrition, cosmetics, and biotechnology. Using sophisticated technology to accelerate the power of nature, BFS hopes to provide a feasible mitigation pathway for CO2 emissions.
The problem
Because of the human cycles of production and consumption, our food, energy and environment are intricately linked. With the consistent global development of the past century, it is increasingly difficult to satisfy our world with sufficient food and energy. Meeting these demands has a direct impact on the environment, especially through the emission of greenhouse gases, particularly atmospheric CO2, which is currently at an unprecedentedly high concentration of nearly 400 ppm (September 2013).
According to the global scientific and environmental community (UN, NASA, IPCC, EPA, etc), if current emission rates continue, we will soon reach a point of no return: irreparable damage resulting in a lack of potable water, changes in food production conditions and increased mortality rates from natural disasters such as floods, storms, and droughts. Climate change is not merely an environmental issue; it has deep economic and social implications. Though many of these natural phenomena have already been documented, energy from fossil fuels has allowed for most of society’s modern comforts, making it difficult to implement changes in behaviour. According to the International Energy Agency, $1 trillion is roughly the amount of investment needed worldwide each year for the next 36 years to stave off the worst effects of global warming and keep the Earth habitable.
When CO2 becomes an opportunity
BFS technology presents some of the answers to the big problems we have represented so far with much lower investment. BFS technology presents a unique technology (3rd Cycle of CO2) to accelerate CO2 reduction based on Carbon, Capture, Conversion and Neutralisation (C3N). C3N is an alternative, or in some cases complementary, to the CCS technology. In BFS technology CO2 is captured, but instead of being buried, this is used to feed marine phytoplankton (the building blocks of life) that capture the CO2 via photosynthesis and transform it into valuable bio-products with applications in a range of markets including energy, pharmaceuticals, nutrition, cosmetics, and biotechnology:
- Some other products can be essential for food.
- High-value products (Omega 3, antioxidants, vitamins, sitosterols, polysaccharides, natural colourants, etc.) from a commercial point of view.
- A true alternative to fossil fuel; storable, high-density energy to be used even to get all the derivate products that currently are obtained from fossil oils (plastics, paints, chemicals, etc).
With patented technology, BFS Blue Enterprises cultivates this marine phytoplankton on an industrial scale with a fully-automatised, aseptic process to ensure high-quality, homogenous production throughout the year. Because of the modular nature of the plant (seen in Figure 1), production is divided into sectors to produce different products, making BFS technology highly adaptable to market demand.
0 CO2 emissions are possible maintaining our lifestyle
Reducing imminent climate change is in our hands, but the solutions proposed to date will supposedly change our current lifestyle and infrastructure; is this one so great as to make it as difficult for states to agree to a joint action investment? Nevertheless, BFS Blue technology proposes to maintain our current energy model without changing our current lifestyle or infrastructure, with a much lower investment. For example, in order to reduce 100% of the emissions coming from the combustion of crude oil in EU, an annual investment of 38,3 B€/year, around 0,4% of the GDP every year up to 2050 is needed; from this point on, no additional investment would be needed anymore, and the plant would generate a revenue of 544 B€ per year.
There are also some figures, not related to climate change, that allow us to understand that the real magnitude of the investment is not so high as it seems:
– Mobile apps sector has revenues of more than 38 B€/year.
– 1,7 T€ is the annual worldwide budget for military expenditure.
– Development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has a total cost of about $1.5 trillion over the course of 50 years or $29 billion per year.
Mankind should react whatever the cost implied in mitigating the climate change, but with the combination of innovative technologies, it can be done without drastic changes and expenses; in fact, the plant not only has the ability to capture CO2, but generating revenues with the production of high-value products. Never CO2 was such a good business.
Conclusions
It’s important to comment that the potential of the technology goes beyond the European Union, or to reducing the CO2 coming from crude oil emissions. In figure 2, we can see an example of the worldwide CO2 budget (before the non -reversible global warming) and the effect of BFS blue technology in a global project.
Bernard A. J. StroÔazzo-Mougin
President
Eloy Chápuli Fernández
Scientific & Technical Management
BFS Bio Fuel Systems
Tel: +34 966 388 278
echapuli@biopetroleo.com
