Trade-offs between Sustainable Development Goals in carbon capture and utilisation

Carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) provides an appealing framework to turn carbon emissions into valuable fuels and chemicals. However, given the vast energy required to activate the CO2 molecule, CCU may have implications on sustainable development that are still poorly understood due to the narrow scope of current carbon footprint-oriented assessments lacking absolute sustainability thresholds. To bridge this gap, we developed a power-chemicals nexus model to look into the future and understand how we could produce 22 net-zero bulk chemicals of crucial importance in a sustainable manner by integrating fossil, CCU routes and power technologies, often assessed separately. We evaluated the environmental performance of these technologies in terms of their contribution to 5 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), using 16 life cycle assessment metrics and 9 planetary boundaries (PB) to quantify and interpret the impact values. We found that fossil chemicals could hamper the attainment of SDG 3 on good health and well-being and SDG 13 on climate change. CCU could help meet SDG 13 but would damage other SDGs due to burden-shifting to human health, water scarcity, and minerals and metals depletion impacts. The collateral damage could be mitigated by judiciously combining fossil and CCU routes with carbon-negative power sources guided by optimisation models incorporating SDGs-based performance criteria explicitly. Our work highlights the importance of embracing the SDGs in technology development to sensibly support the low-carbon energy and chemicals transition.

Automated summary

Carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) offers a promising approach to convert carbon emissions into valuable fuels and chemicals. However, the environmental implications of CCU and fossil chemicals on sustainable development goals are not well-understood. This study evaluates the environmental performance of various technologies and highlights the importance of integrating SDGs in technology development to support the low-carbon energy and chemicals transition.