Total and IFPEN Team Up to Accelerate Carbon Reduction R&D

IFP Energies Nouvelles (IFPEN) and Total announce that they signed a strategic R&D partnership yesterday, that includes an agreement to endow a chair at the IFP School, on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and technologies to curb CO2 emissions. The roughly €40 million partnership covers a period of five years.

The agreement has two parts:

• A strategic R&D partnership on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) aims to reduce the cost of infrastructure and improve the CCUS chain’s energy efficiency to secure its large-scale deployment. The partnership steps up the long-standing collaboration between Total and IFPEN by marshaling additional resources. The research will focus on fields related to new materials, process scale-up, underground carbon storage in deep saline aquifers, technical and economic feasibility studies and the quantification of environmental benefits for the entire CCUS chain.
• The Carbon Management and Negative CO2 Emissions Technologies to Net-Zero Carbon Future Chair will help train a new generation of international researchers and experts who will develop technologies to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Overseen by a scientific committee comprised of world-renowned, independent experts, the chair will bring together seven doctoral and five post-doctoral researchers for five years.  

Following the signature of the agreement, Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of Total, stated: “We are delighted to accelerate the R&D partnership between Total and IFPEN. We want to pool our innovation capabilities to reduce the cost of CCUS technologies and improve their efficiency — both of which are necessary for large-scale deployment. Total wants to help make the planet carbon neutral and boost the competitiveness of an industrial-scale CCUS sector.”

Didier Houssin, Chairman and CEO of IFPEN, commented: “IFPEN has been actively researching carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies for nearly 20 years. Our strengthened partnership with Total will allow us to combine our teams’ skills and know-how with Total’s and thus to accelerate the deployment of CCUS technologies, which are a key solution for drastically cutting CO2 emissions.”  

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Sustainable Development Scenario, which corresponds to a less than 2°C rise in the global average temperature, it will be necessary to capture and store 6 billion tons of carbon by 2050. This will require developing viable, cost-competitive CCUS technologies.