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Newsletter - February 2021

The Word of our Secretary General  Dear Members and Partners,  We hope this start of 2021 finds you well and healthy. From our side, we are pleased to start this year with several good news. CVE has been granted 4 new EU-funded projects starting between late 2020 and mid 2021. This gave us the chance to enlarge our team with two recruits, Antonio La Mantia and Lara Tottolo, our new Communication and Events Managers that we will introduce below. We are also particularly happy to introduce the experts of our new Scientific Advisory Committee and to share with you new opportunities. In this Newsletter, you will also read about the latest updates on our advocacy efforts and find a summary of our two first thematic workshops.  Enjoy the reading and do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions. We wish you a good start to a healthy and joyful year.   Anastasios Perimenis

Welcome to our new members

News   Launching of our EU Project INITIATE Carmeuse, ENGIE and John Cockerill join forces to reduce industrial CO2 emissions in Wallonia The Febeliec prize for the Columbus project of our members ENGIE and Carmeuse Fully circular Aviation Fuel directly from air (Climeworks) Synkero builds facility in the port of Amsterdam producing sustainable aviation fuel from CO2 Eni and Saipem sign a Memorandum of Understanding for decarbonization projects in Italy. Carbon Direct Makes First Investment in Svante Carbon Capture Company – Svante ENGIE aims to produce synthetic kerosene in France Veolia and Carbon Clean announce first carbon capture trials in UK Energy Recovery Facilities Sunfire acquires Swiss alkaline electrolysis company Fermentalg and Suez create a joint venture to accelerate the industrialization and commercialization of solutions for capturing and valorizing CO2 Carbonsmart milestones for Lanzatech Avantium awarded 5.4Meuros grant for expansion of FDCA pilot plant CO2 sub removal from the atmosphere using sustainable energy Novel photocatalyst effectively turns CO2 into CH4 fuel with light Solar chemicals and fuels in the dark  Creating animal food from a greenhouse gas  How clean electricity can upgrade the value of captured carbon CO2 as feedstock: The digests 2020 multi slide guide to carbon to value initiative Powerfuels in a renewable energy world (LUT/GAP/DENA study is out) CO2 as chemical feedstock for polymers already nearly 1 MT production capacity installed Past events with CVE representation G-STIC - Walter Eevers SUNERGY WEBINAR - Anastasios Perimenis International Workshop on CCU - Walter Eevers Young Energy Forum - Stefanie Kesting Les Rencontres Européennes CO2, Industries et Territoires - Célia Sapart TWEED - Jean-Yves Tilquin INSTANT CACTUS PODCAST - Célia Sapart BUSINESS IMPACT PODCAST - Célia Sapart KENNET RADIO - Judith Bunting interviews Célia Sapart Save the dates 9th Conference on CO2-based Fuels and Chemicals, 23 March 2021 Sustainable plastic - Joining CCU, circular economy and power-to-X for better polymers, 25 March 2021 8th International Sotacarbo Summer School, 7 June 2021 VDMA Power-to-X Conference, 27 October 2021 ACI’s 17th Carbon Dioxide Utilisation Summit, 27 October 2021 2nd Carbon Dioxide Conversion Catalysis Conference, 6 November 2021 ENLITE Europe, 30 November 2021

Four EU projects granted for CVE and partners! In 2020, CVE has been actively working on EU research proposals to raise funding for CCU related projects at different TRL levels. Four of these projects have been granted by the European Commission. The project INITIATE (Ref: 958318) has already started in November 2020 and is led by TNO. It is entitled Innovative Industrial Transformation of the Steel and Chemical Industries of Europe and its objective is to demonstrate the conversion of residual gas from the steel industry into valuable products such as fertilizers (high purity urea). See the launching press release here.  Another project, TAKE-OFF (Ref: 101006799), led as well by TNO has just started in January 2021. It is entitled Production of synthetic renewable aviation fuel from CO2 and H2. See the launching press release here. More information about the other granted projects will come in the next newsletters.

Let’s meet our scientific experts! The introductory meeting of our CVE Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) took place in early February with the aim to highlight the key messages around CCU based on solid and objective scientific evidences. The SAC is not a governance body, but it has an advisory role and it gathers experts from a broad range of CCU-related subjects. The first activity of the SAC is to act as expert reviewer of the second order draft of the IPCC assessment report (AR6, WG3). Discover our experts in the overview below. If you have any questions related to the SAC, do not hesitate to reach out to Célia Sapart (celia.sapart@co2value.eu).

CCU Advocacy Update Over the past months, CVE has been working on the development of a complete advocacy strategy. The aim of developing a strategy is to have a structured approach that will guide our advocacy activities in the short to medium term within a very complex and quickly evolving policy framework. The strategy will highlight policy priority areas, analyse the stakeholder landscape for building alliances and provide concrete action plans for advocacy work. CVE members were involved in the development of the strategy through the work of the Advocacy Working Groups, the policy break-out session held on the 4th CVE Day in November 2020 and separate interviews. The strategy is expected to be finalized in early March. In the meantime, CVE is continuing to work on several key pieces of legislations. Please find below more information on what has been done in terms of advocacy in the past couple of months: Several delegated acts of the REDII still need to be implemented. As reported on earlier, CVE participated on 13 October 2020 in the “Stakeholder meeting on the delegated act on the methodology to determine the renewability of electricity used in the production of RFNBOs”. Following this meeting, CVE is building alliances with other key European Associations to form common understanding and position that we could jointly bring to the attention of the European Commission (DG ENER). Moreover, the European Commission has engaged to review the Renewable Energy Directive by June 2021. In 2020, the Commission published the Roadmap Impact Assessment, to which CVE responded. The European Commission also launched a Public Consultation on the review that closed on the 9th of February 2021. Based on the discussions within the Working Group on Advocacy for Fuels, CVE also responded to this consultation. Also the ETS revision is high on the agenda of both advocacy-oriented Working Groups. CVE responded to the Roadmap Impact assessment in 2020. Both Working Groups discussed and finalized a response to the Public Consultation on the ETS review, on which a Commission proposal can be expected in June 2021. Discussions within the Working Groups will continue to reach a position in this important legislative package. Apart from these two key files, CVE has also responded to a consultation on ‘Sustainable finance – EU classification system for green investments’. CVE is strongly concerned with the fact that no technical screening criteria for CCU have been developed in the Delegated Act for Mitigation and Adaptation and that CCU is also neglected in different other parts of the Delegated Act. Early March, all CVE’s positions and responses to the consultations will be made available in our members-only SharePoint. Should you have any questions on any advocacy issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to our EU Affairs Manager Stefan Gielis (stefan.gielis@co2value.eu).

Did you attend our latest thematic workshops? For CVE's final event of 2020, various speakers participated in the discussion on CO2 mineralisation, which took place on the 15th of December. Firstly, current technological developments were presented by our members, Carbon8 Systems, VITO, ORBIX and Mitsubishi Corporation. Examples included "The use of direct flue gas capture of CO2 and production of aggregates for the construction industry" and "CO2 Storage in the city of Ghent using carbstone pavers". Secondly, Prof. Andre Bardow (ETH Zürich) spoke about the climate and environmental impact of CO2 mineralisation from a life cycle analysis perspective. Lastly, an overview on policy developments and framework for CO2 mineralisation was given by our team's EU affairs manager Stefan Gielis. In general, key takeaways from these presentations include that CO2 mineralisation is profitable and environmentally beneficial. Moreover, sufficient technologies are available, but they need the correct policy signals to be deployed at larger scales. To start 2021, CVE has organized a workshop on the interconnection between CCU and renewable energy. The workshop provided a good opportunity to hear and listen to different perspectives from partners and members: Prof. Christian Breyer, LUT University, presented modelling work for the role of CCU fuels in a 100% renewable energy world, our members ENGIE, displayed the point of view of a major producer and consumer of renewable energy. TenneT, explained the technical challenges for a Transmission System Operator in expanding the renewable energy grid, and EASE, the EU Association for Storage of Energy, clarified the potential role of CCU in the storage of renewable energy. During the workshop, we also had the chance to hear Jan Steinkohl from DG ENER presenting the renewable energy EU policy context.  Our latest workshop was organized in the framework of the EU Industry Week. It took place on the 23rd of February 2021. We brought together national and European voices to highlight the role of the CCU industry in future-proofing our economy and explained the challenges and opportunities for large scale CCU deployment. Please find the recordings and all workshop material here

CCU related opportunities to come Roadmap for CCUS development in Europe for 2030 (CCUS SET-PLAN). As CVE member, you should have recently received the Newsletter of the CCUS SET-PLAN. In the context of the CCUS SET-Plan, CVE will be contributing to the development of a Roadmap for CCUS development in Europe for 2030. This Roadmap will highlight what needs to be done to achieve the CCUS SET-Plan goals by 2030. CVE will be responsible for the CCU part and we will seize this opportunity to develop a stand-alone European CCU Roadmap for technology deployment and market uptake.  CO2 Commoditisation Roadmap (CSIRO and CVA). Following very similar timelines as above, our friends in Australia, led by CSIRO and CO2 Value Australia, are developing a CO2 Commoditisation Roadmap aiming to inform decision makers on the opportunities and challenges of scaling up the nascent CCU industry in Australia. They will be looking at the European practices for this and CVE is engaged in providing the European perspective and experience.  For both roadmaps, CVE will involve you as members in a structured manner to receive your valuable feedback. Please stay tuned! New Working Group on CCU chemicals. Next to our running Working Groups on Advocacy for Fuels and Mineralisation, we are preparing the ground for a WG on CCU chemicals, a WG that will aim to understand and align industry perspectives, support value chain and highlight the role of CO2 as a chemical feedstock and as a way to reduce emissions in the chemical industry. We are aiming at a workshop on CCU chemicals by mid-2021 that could kick-start the WG and we will be in touch with you to understand the challenges of this industry and establish the priorities for such a WG.  Innovation Fund. The European Commission is exploring the possibility of adding a one-stage application procedures for large-scale calls in the Innovation Fund. This option would require an amendment to the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/856 with regard to the operation of the Innovation Fund and this amendment is now under preparation. The decision on which procedure to apply (one-stage or two-stage) will be made for each call, in consultation with the Member States. The next large-scale call (whether one- or two-stage) is expected in September 2021. In response to the feedback received on the first large-scale call, DG CLIMA is also considering providing more guidance documents to ease the application procedure for further calls. We will keep you informed of the development on this front. In April, CVE aims to organise a workshop on funding opportunities related to CCU followed by a matchmaking event. Please do not hesitate to come to us with project ideas. Your contact on this matter is Anastasios Perimenis (anastasios.perimenis@co2value.eu).

CVE goes on Twitter! After LinkedIn,  CVE is now on Twitter, so please come to check our new CVE page and follow us! Over the last year, we have largely increased our visibility e.g.on LinkedIn and we are always glad to receive CCU-related news to share via our channels, so please do not hesitate to contact our communication team to diffuse your news (celia.sapart@co2value.eu).

News from the secretariat

Our team has grown with the addition of Lara Tottolo and Antonio La Mantia, our two new Communication and Event Managers. Antonio has previously worked in communications and membership for a European federation of social and healthcare service providers and at the European Green Party. Lara joins us from Bosch GmbH, where she worked as Communication and Policy Expert. Together, they will reinforce the communication team, collaborating in internal and external communications for the association and in the communication and dissemination activities of the four EU projects that CVE got granted. The communications team is led by Célia Sapart our Director of Communications and Climate Science. With this new communication team, our newsletter will surely keep you updated more frequently on CCU and its developments. Do not hesitate to contact us when you have CCU related news to share (lara.tottolo@co2value.eu, antonio.lamantia@co2value.eu). Two persons join, but one person leaves. Our interne, Eline Hendriks has successfully completed her 6-month internship in our team. She has supported the effort of the secretariat, especially in working on the creation of the new SharePoint and of the CVE databases that will very soon be available to our members. Thank you Eline for the very good work, it was a pleasure to have you in the team and we wish you a lot of success in your next steps.

+32 2 761 16 48 contact@co2value.eu Avenue de Tervueren 188A, 1150, Brussels (BE) www.co2value.eu

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