In line with Taiwan's 2050 Net Zero Emission Roadmap, CPC has been promoting net zero transmission within domestic boundaries by increasing investments into renewable energy sources, exploring zero emission power, and increasing the scale of CO2 recycled and reused by the petrochemical industry. Through the adoption of carbon capture, utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technology, CPC aims to recycle and synthesize CO2 into chemical products to create new industry chains and business models altogether.
CPC has set provisional carbon reduction goals for 2030 in response to the nation's carbon reduction policy and prevailing climate risks. As technologies mature, CPC will also adopt renewable energy, carbon capture/utilization, and carbon negative technologies to help achieve net zero emission by 2050. In the meantime, the CCUS Team assembled back in 2021 will assist emission-intensive plant site in implementing carbon reduction policies. With regards to the research and development of carbon capture and utilization technology, CPC's strategies currently focus on three main aspects: "development of CO2 catalyst," "installation of CCU pilot equipment," and "CCU commercialization assessment." Through CCU, the CO2 captured can be turned into chemical products such as dimethyl carbonate, methane, methanol etc., and the additional supply of methanol not only lessens Taiwan's dependency on imports but may even meet the increasing methanol demand in Northeast Asia and be turned into chemical products of longer carbon cycle for carbon reduction benefits.
In order to make a viable commercial model out of carbon cycling, CPC has been exploring ways by which CO2 can be captured and utilized, and installed trial facilities for "CO2 Capture and Methanol Conversion" within oil refineries to validate the technology, which will then enable catalyst development, and procedure optimization. CPC began construction of the trial facilities in 2022, and by the end of 2022, it had completed phase 1 - "CO2 Capture System for Production Exhaust Gas"; full completion of the entire facilities is expected at the end of 2023. The trial facilities for "CO2 Capture and Methanol Conversion" comprises two main systems: "CO2 Capture" and "Conversion and Utilization," which are based on an innovative technology that involves low energy consumption. The technology adopts the chemical absorption method, using liquid amine to capture CO2 from the exhaust gas generated from production activities. By applying the right catalyst and a highly efficient process, CO2 is turned into methanol, which has lower carbon footprint and can be made into chemical materials such as ethylene, propane, and ethyl.
With the completion and full production of the trial facilities, CPC hopes to replace oil with CO2 as an alternative source of raw material, and in doing so contribute to the supply of low-carbon plastics for the domestic petrochemical industry in order to meet the low-carbon requirements and carbon taxing in USA and the EU. CPC has committed to constructing the above trial facilities not only to reduce carbon, but also to accumulate practical experience on the technology, which may prove beneficial to the research and development of CO2 hydrogenation catalysts while allowing technical support to other production procedures within the company. Furthermore, CPC plans to construct facilities capable of capturing more than one million metric tons of CO2 by 2030 as a show of initiative to reducing carbon.
With respect to carbon storage technology, CPC has been working with CCS Alliance, an organization spearheaded by the Bureau of Energy of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, since 2010 to develop new technologies for storing carbon. A trial run for the technology was conducted at Yongheshan Power Plant in 2011 to validate the feasibility of the carbon storage technology and to provide useful reference for future R&D efforts. Today, CPC remains committed to mastering the carbon storage technology by integrating domestic resources and drawing experiences from around the world. CPC also takes the initiative to organize awareness campaigns, and cooperates with local government agencies, colleges, research institutions, and environmental protection organizations to investigate the acceptability of CCUS. Promotional materials were then prepared based on the findings in order to convey to the general public the proper knowledge on carbon storage while eliminating their concerns about the new technology.
Net zero and carbon reduction have emerged to become the world's common values in recent years due to climate change, and out of the many possible carbon reduction solutions, CCUS is regarded as one of the most important technologies for achieving carbon neutrality on a global scale. CPC has made prominent progress in the development of CCUS technology, and aside from relying on its own R&D capacity, CPC also exchanges knowledge and cooperates with academic and research institutions in a pro-active manner, and supports government policies by taking part in cross-department carbon storage trials. Data gathered from the test sites is presented to government agencies to support law-making. CPC envisions itself as the industry leader, and looks forward to turning research outcomes into viable business models. The organization not only explores every possible way to reduce carbon internally, but also inspires other domestic industries to undergo net zero transformation and develop innovative technologies that contribute to the nation's carbon neutral goal by 2050.