Woodside teams up with US firms for West Australian CCU

Australian energy producer Woodside and US-based technology developers ReCarbon and LanzaTech will look into the viability of a proposed carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) pilot facility in Perth, Western Australia, they said in a joint statement on March 18.

The proposed pilot facility would recycle greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into value-added ethanol using ReCarbon and Lanzatech’s technologies. The ReCarbon technology would convert carbon dioxide and methane into synthesis gas, with the LanzaTech technology fermenting the synthesis gas into ethanol.

Traditionally, ethanol manufacture relies on land and water use for source crops, such as corn. CCU reduces the reliance on these natural resources, the companies said.

The project is now in the front-end engineering design phase.