Energy giant bp and industrial gases company Linde announced today plans for a major capture and storage (CCS) project in Texas, capable of storing as much as 15 million tons of CO2 per year, and enabling the production of low carbon hydrogen.

The new project, anticipated to be operational as early as 2026, aims to capture and store CO2 from Linde’s hydrogen production facilities in the greater Houston area, and store carbon from other industrial facilities, supporting the large scale decarbonization of the Texas Gulf Coast industrial corridor.

According to the companies, the amount of annual CO2 potentially stored by the project would be the equivalent of taking 3 million cars off the road each year.

Dan Yankowski, President, Linde Gases North America, said:

“Linde is committed to lowering absolute carbon emissions 35% by 2035 and reaching climate neutrality by 2050. Capturing the CO2 from our hydrogen production plants in the Houston area will be a significant step towards achieving these goals.”

Hydrogen is viewed as one of the key building blocks of the transition to a cleaner energy future, particularly for sectors with difficult to abate emissions, in which renewable energy solutions such as wind or solar are less practical. Despite being the most abundant element in the universe, however, there are no pure hydrogen deposits on earth, and it must be extracted from other materials. The extraction process often creates pollutants and GHG emissions. Significant investments are required to develop clean extraction processes, such as green hydrogen, which uses a renewable energy-powered electrolysis process to extract hydrogen from water, or blue hydrogen, which converts natural gas into hydrogen and CO₂, which is then captured and permanently stored.

Under the new project, bp will appraise, develop and permit the geological storage sites for permanent sequestration of the CO2, while Linde will capture and compress the CO2 from its hydrogen production facilities using proprietary technology.

Dave Lawler, Chairman and President of bp America, said:

“The energy expertise in Texas and strong supply chains have been generations in the making. This new low carbon energy project will help us leverage those strengths for the next chapter of the energy transition. In particular, it can help decarbonize hard-to-abate industries for the greatest potential impact on emissions while protecting jobs.”