Vow ASA and Bellona join forces to solve one of the major environmental challenges

Vow ASA´s pyrolysis technology converts sludge, organic waste, and other types of biomass into biocarbon and biogas. But are we able to get hold of enough of these resources to make an impact for climate change mitigation? This is the big question that Bellona and Vow ASA jointly will be finding the answer for.

“Pyrolysis solves numerous environmental challenges by converting waste to valuable resources. Vow has an industrialized technology solution that we have been waiting for the past 25 years,” says Frederic Hauge, the founder of Bellona.

Vow, with its subsidiary Scanship, has for decades delivered technologies to process and purify wastewater, foodwaste and garbage on cruise ships far beyond regulatory requirements. In recent years, the company has developed a new pyrolysis technology that converts these waste streams into biocarbon and clean, CO2 neutral energy.

“Through years of technology development combined with last year acquisition of the French company ETIA, we now have a solution to turn biomass, sludge and other waste streams into valuable commodities and energy, helping multiple industries reduce emissions and meet their CO2 neutral targets,”says Henrik Badin, CEO of Vow ASA

Carbon sequestration with biocarbon will play an important role cutting world CO2 emissions by half within 2030, and to further reach negative emissions by the middle of the century. Converting sludge, organic waste, and other types of waste into biocarbon will make significant contribution to these targets.

“The technical solutions already exist. We have them. What we need is to get access to these vast streams of biomass and organic waste, to obtain political support to use it, and to develop efficient ways to roll-out technology in larger scale. We must make it all relevant in a bigger picture. With Bellona’s broad knowledge and experience of industrial and political processes in climate matters, we believe that together we can solve this,” Says Henrik Badin, CEO of Vow ASA.

Biomass, sludge, and organic waste is most often untapped resources
The access to sufficient biomass is one of the major unsolved challenges according to UN’s IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Thus, finding good solutions that exploits these waste streams into resources along with CO2 removal, are becoming key in the fight against climate change.

“Processes that can stabilize carbon from biological sources will be an important solution for the 2020s. With stable storage of biocarbon, we are also creating opportunities for negative emissions,” says Frederic Hauge, the founder of Bellona.

Hauge further adds that; “We can obviously not cut down forests or use cropland to meet the need for biomass and bioenergy. We need to use the enormous waste streams being lost every year. One example is sludge from aquaculture fish farming industry. These waste streams entering our oceans represents untapped resources of valuable nutrients and energy. We need to utilize this, not only to recycle scarce resources as phosphorus but also to produce biocarbon and biogas to mitigate climate change.”

Sludge from wastewater and municipal sewage plants are often stabilized and reused as agricultural fertilizes. But with increasing concerns around environmental toxins, contamination of food chains, micro plastics and more, an increasing number of countries are restricting such use of sludge. As a result, sludge is instead being incinerated with high CO2 emissions. This serves no one according to Bellona.

Pyrolysis and biocarbon are part of the solution
Biocarbon can play a central role in solving many of the environmental challenges going forward, Bellona believes. When biomass, sludge and organic waste are just incinerated, these valuable resources are destructed into ash. When instead, using a pyrolysis process, biocarbon and energy rich synthesis gas can be the basis for production of CO2 neutral energy, electricity, and even decarbonized energy such as hydrogen.

“The biocarbon can be redeployed into soil, not only as carbon sequestration removing carbon form the CO2 cycle but also as soil enrichment, increasing nutrient levels and humidity, fertilizing the soil for years to come,”says Frederic Hauge, the founder of Bellona.

Biocarbon could also play an important role in replacing fossil-based energy in industries, as an example, to replace large amounts of fossil coke and coal today used in the metallurgical industries. This is something Bellona has been focusing on for years, working closely with the Norwegian Ferroalloy Producers Research Association (FFF).

“We must reset our minds and handle the enormous waste streams that today cause large environmental damage. That is how we together can make a change,” says Frederic Hauge in Bellona.