Scaling-up Renewable Energy and CO2 Capture Technologies: A Review

According to Ritchie (2019), Oceania emits 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2 yearly, which is equivalent to 1.3% of the global emissions. Wang et al. (2011) argue that most of the carbon emissions are as a result of the generation of non-renewable energy. From figure 8, in 2016, Oceania generated 227.7412GW of non-renewable energy and 67.29998GW of renewable energy. But, in 2050, it is projected that the region will be able to generate 49.97507GW of non-renewable energy and 708.5722GW of renewable energy.

This section provides a brief comparative analysis of renewable and non-renewable energies in Asia, North America, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Oceania. In recent years, studies on non-renewable and renewable energy generation have sparked much interest. Adewuyi and Awodumi (2017) claim that, as of 2017, 107 studies have been conducted and 77% were between 2010 and 2014. By far, with the total regional studies on non-renewable and renewable generation around the globe, 26% were conducted in Asia. This accounts for the high levels of both non-renewable and renewable energy generation, as depicted in Figure 9a and Figure 9b. It is clearly seen in Figure 9a that in 2016, Asia was the highest generator of power as compared to the other six regions, followed by North America, Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and lastly Oceania. Since the Paris Agreement to limit the World's average temperature to less than 2°C, and as well limit the amount of carbon emissions, the use of non-renewable energy is expected to drop around the globe. With the various energy policy of different countries to limit CO2 emissions as promulgated by the UNFCCC, by 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa would be the least region to use non-renewable sources of energy. This is followed by Oceania, Latin America, Europe, Middle-East and North Africa, North America and Asia.

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From Figure 9b, it is evident that in 2016, renewable energy generation was highest in Asia, followed by Europe, North America, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania and lastly the Middle East and North Africa. With the various policies by governments around the globe, it is expected that the generation of renewable energy would surge in 2050. Figure 9b shows that Asia would be the highest generator of renewable energies by 2050, followed by North America, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa and Oceania. This findings, tend to corroborate the findings of the Smith (2018) who found that China, US and India are the top three countries in Asia and North America that will account for 75% of global renewable expansion by 2022.

Xu et al. (2020) inform that one billion will either have to adapt to extreme heat conditions or migrate to colder regions for every 1°C (1.8°F) of warming. Thus, billions of people would live in conditions warmer than those who have allowed life to thrive for the past 6,000 years if the heat-traping greenhouse gas emissions continue at its current pace. In the absence of a blueprint or roadmap, temperatures are expected to reach 4.1°C – 4.8°C by the end of the century above the pre-industrial era. Nonetheless, the current policies, government pledges, including the NDC of the Paris Agreement, are projected to decrease the baseline emissions in about 3.0°C (IRENA, 2019). From Figure 10, it shows a positive inverse of non-renewable and renewable energies. Thus in 2016, non-renewable energy accounted for the highest power generation in the World. However, in 2050, it is projected that renewable energy generation would supplant the generation of non-renewable energy. According to Xu et al. (2020), the expected population around the globe is likely to distort the distribution of renewable and non-renewable energy generation due to a possible increase in the consumption of energy. Strikingly, most of the regions also lack adaptation measures to mitigate climate change (Burke, Hsiang & Miguel, 2015; Carleton & Hsiang, 2016). Also, during the UN Climate Action Summit, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed worry due to high levels of climatic conditions and therefore, called for 45% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030 and a zero-emissions by 2050. This calls for a scale-up in renewable energy technologies like hydro, bioenergy, solar, geothermal, wind and ocean energy.

Ritchie (2019) asserts that the recent atmospheric concentration of CO2 increase to about 400ppm is a cause for global concern in climate change. Most significantly, the use of coal or fossil fuel for the generation of CO2 is considered as the primary contributor to CO2 emissions. While coal use is being questioned globally, a sustainable power source is accelerating ahead and the individuals who back the last firmly, regularly feel that any discussion of discovering approaches to diminish the effect of proceeding to utilize non-renewable energy source risk diverting or easing the development of renewables (Elliott, 2020). Nevertheless, the supply of energy is dominated by the use of fossil fuels. Chaterjee and Krupadam (2019) argue that the two primary sources of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere is as a high demand and consumption of fossil fuel in energy production. In which case, if carbon outflow reduction is viewed as earnest, at that point clean-up choices of carbon emissions from diverse sources are additionally dire, if just perhaps as an interim measure.

In a study conducted by Berkhout, Marcotullio, and Hanaoka (2012), they found that while Carbon Capture Storage and Utilization (CCSU) will potentially account for about 64% reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ from source by 2050, Efficiency in power, fuel switching and renewables accounts for about 45% reductions of the total emissions in 2020. Due to the advances in the field of science and technology, several technologies have been found palpable to reduce the emissions of carbon from sources. There is, therefore, an urgent need for cost-effective and selective CO2 capture technologies. While CO2 emissions require much energy during the conversion process due to a high level of stability, its production further emits considerable amounts of CO2 (Yang et al., 2008). Wang et al. (2011) contend that acquiring harmful net carbon emissions is not simple, and the structure of efficient catalysts for CO2 conversion is vital in decreasing carbon emissions.

Catalytic CO2 conversion can mostly occur in electrochemical cells, liquid-phase or gas-phase (Whang et al., 2019). Various scholars have conducted studies of the solubility of CO2 in water and various aqueous solutions at the liquid phase (Lee & Sardesai, 2005; Chen, Li & Kanan, 2012; Yadav & Xu, 2012). Chen et al. (2012) discovered that the liquid-phase method has a low productivity rate due to CO2's low solubility in aqueous solutions. Additionally, with the gas-phase method, various doped carbon materials, metal carbides, metal oxides and metals have been used as catalysts for converting CO2 (Gutiérrez-Guerra et al., 2016; Merino‐Garcia, Albo & Irabien, 2017; Merino-Garcia, Albo & Irabien; 2017; Wang, Pan & Yang, 2018). Merino-Garcia et al. (2017) found that synthetic strategies have been advanced to minimize coke formation and high reaction temperatures for the reformation of dry methane. Wang et al. (2018) argued that because H2 gas is employed in the gaseous phase method, CO2 cannot be considered as efficient. The reason being that, during the methane steam reform in the H2 gas process, there is a considerable amount of CO2 that is produced.

However, Whang et al. (2019: p. 13) suggest that 'if H2 can be produced from water without CO2 emissions, CO2 hydrogenation in gas-phase would be a potent tool for efficient CO2 conversion'. CO2 hydrogenation results in gaseous products such as CH4 or CO, notwithstanding, liquid products such as dimethyl or formic acid exhibit high values (Genovese et al., 2015). Also, metal-based catalysts like supported Ni Catalysts or precious metals have also been used in converting CO2 to CO or CH4 (Gutiérrez-Guerra et al., 2016). Whang et al. (2019) assert that relatively few heterogeneous catalysts have been found for the creation of formic acid; preferably, homogeneous catalysts have been ordinarily utilized. Therefore, producing formic acid in strong heterogeneous catalyst might be a potential area for reducing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, and thus, both light and heat energy sources have been advanced to reduce total energy utilization.

In a similar study conducted by Chaterjee and Krupadam (2019) on using amino acid-imprinted polymers as highly selective CO2 capture, they realized that amino acids exhibited a substantial increase in the selective adsorption capacities of CO2 in the gas-phase method. However, the use of reusable adsorbent is a challenge in selectively capturing CO2 from sources during gaseous mixtures. Thus instead of the reusable adsorbent of amino acids, nanoparticles functionalized with the imprinting of amino acids substantially increased the selective capture of CO2 in the gaseous mixture. Molecular imprinting resulted in very high adsorption capacity of CO2 of 5.67 mmol g^(-1) at 3- degree/1 bar in the vinyl benzyl chloride-co-divinyl benzene polymer formed cavities of 1 to 3 mm size and introduced –N-H and –SOOH functionalities (Chaterjee & Krupadam, 2019). The result further showed that CO2 selectivity over CH4 and N2 was about 83-87% and 87-91%, respectively. Mehrvarz, Ghoreyshi and Jahanshahi (2017: p. 420) also add that 'the isosteric heat of adsorption (Qst) for CO2 at 298 and 303 K J mol-1 and this would be responsible for high CO2 adsorption energies and faster kinetics.

Merino-Garcia et al. (2017) found that the CO2 conversion using electrochemical method showed an improvement in productivity with the use of gas-diffusion electrode cells. The studies show that the direct usage of H2O and CO2 for fuel or chemical production looked promising. Whang et al. (2019) typify that the electrochemical technology of reducing CO2 is at its early stages as opposed with other CO2 capture technologies. A variety of materials have been tried as catalysts for reducing CO2 in the electrochemical method, and the catalysts ought to be tuned based upon the product targeted. Ren et al. (2019) propound that Ag and Au produce Bi, Sn, or CO produces formate, and Cu also produces hydrocarbons like C2H4. Therefore, Nano-structured catalysts should be optimized further, considering the gas-diffusion electrodes in the cell design. These methods offer a promising strategy in reducing CO2 emissions from sources, and thereby, cutting down on the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Figure 1 shows the pathways of CO2 capture from sources such as chemical production, cement manufacture, iron and steel production, ammonia and hydrogen production, oil refining and electricity power generation.

The contribution aimed at inductively identifying relevant literature on renewable energy and CO2 capture technologies and usefully bridge the research gap on renewable energy and CO2 capture technologies. The findings show that Asia would be the highest generator of renewable energies by 2050, followed by North America, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa and Oceania. Similarly, the findings indicate that by 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa would be the least region to use non-renewable sources of energy, followed by Oceania, Latin America, Europe, Middle-East and North Africa, North America and Asia. While Asia would be the highest generator of renewable energy, the continent is projected to be the highest generator of non-renewable energy with China and India being the highest contributors on the continent. This is likely to increase the climatic conditions globally without achieving a zero-emissions as recommended by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Thus, the findings show that by 2050, renewable energy would increase from 5900.274GW in 2016 to 47536.27GW globally, while non-renewable energy would decrease from 18439.04GW in 2016 to 7778.975GW. The study again showed that Molecular Imprinting Technologies (MIT) with reusable adsorbent of amino acids, nanoparticles functionalized with the imprinted amino acids had a highly selective capture of CO2 and was likely to increase the selectivity rate over CH4 and N2 by 83-87% and 87-91%. Therefore, the study concludes that renewable energy, coupled with energy efficiency gains and CO2 Capture technologies, can provide a substantial decrease in the CO2 emissions reductions needed by 2050 and not necessarily achieving zero-emissions if not properly scaled-up.