Cashing in Carbon Credits with Thermal Oxidizers and RTOs

Increasingly, Companies are pledging to help stop climate change by reducing their own greenhouse-gas emissions as much as they can. With the current Biden Administration heavily pushing the agenda of climate change, the role of greenhouse gases are being taken very seriously. While the discussions are often emotionally charged and filled with rhetoric, a number ofcritical data points stand out.

Human activities, including combustion of fossil fuels, do lead to the production, or emission, of excess carbon dioxide. Beyond the obvious environmental benefits, re-engineering a cleaner manufacturing process could lead to some economic and social gains destined to change our world for the better. Perhaps most significant from an economic vantage – In many places a voluntary private sector market has developed which facilitates the purchase and sale of "carbon credits." The concept is simple, if elegant. Carbon dioxide emitters, less kindly called polluters, may choose to compensate for their contributions of carbon (or other greenhouse gases) by purchasing "offsets" which provide a monetary incentive to either decrease emissions or reduce atmospheric concentrations. It is estimated that demand for carbon credits could increase by a factor of 15 or more by 2030 and by a factor of up to 100 by 2050. 

Offset goals are being increasingly facilitated by various types of thermal oxidizers and regenerative thermal oxidizers (RTOs) which can be highly effective and energy efficient systems for minimizing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants emitted by industrial plants. These incinerators are able to thermally or catalytically convert pollution-laden emissions into a less contaminated form of CO2 and water vapor. Efficiency rates for the oxidation process are typically better than 99% destruction/removal efficiency (also called DRE) levels for VOCs, hazardous air pollutants, and odors.

Applications for such technologies used for maximizing carbon credit potential seem to be popping up everywhere. For instance, RTOs are being used to destroy low concentrations of methane at high air flow rates. Power generation is becoming commercially feasible as a byproduct of such processes. Since many operations, such as coal mines are likely to be capped under future climate regulations, they should become eligible to generate carbon offset credits in a federally-congenial "pre-compliance" culture.  As far as Global Warming is concerned, the sky is no limit when the capture and sequestration of carbon is the goal.