Nordural Grundartangi ehf, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Century Aluminum Company, signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Ocean GeoLoop, an industrial green technology company. The aim of the project is to reduce Iceland’s carbon emissions by approximately 10% by deploying Ocean GeoLoop’s carbon capture technology at the Grundartangi aluminum smelter in Iceland.
“We are proud to announce this agreement with Nordural, aiming to reduce carbon emissions significantly by deploying our disruptive carbon capture solution,” said Odd-Geir Lademo, CEO of Ocean GeoLoop. “The end-of-pipe technology is planned to be assisted by the e-Loop, a horizontal hydropower unit, enabling electricity production utilizing the CO2 from the aluminum process resulting in a self-energized carbon capture solution at Nordural.”
Ocean GeoLoop develops, pilots, and commercializes multifunctional environmental technologies for carbon capture, utilization, and storage. The GeoLoop carbon capture solution is characterized by several unique capabilities, as the CO2 separation is 100% clean, can capture 100% of the CO2, and has no need for special adaptations based on the type of flue gas. The carbon capture process is expected to be assisted by the e-Loop, a proprietary, horizontal hydropower unit, enabling electricity production from low quality heat sources.
Nordural produces Natur-Al™ aluminum with one of the lowest CO₂ footprints in the world. The company’s Grundartangi smelting facility is among the largest aluminum plants in Europe with an annual production of over 300,000 tonnes. By implementing Ocean GeoLoop’s carbon capture technology, Nordural has the ambition of becoming a carbon neutral aluminum producer.
“We are excited at the prospect of being able to capture, use and store the CO2 that our plant emits now,” said Gunnar Guðlaugsson, CEO of Nordural. “We are already far ahead of the curve in terms of carbon footprint, as all our electricity is renewable, but a successful carbon capture scheme would bring us to true carbon neutrality.”