Chemical Processing Notebook: Former Exxon Biosciences Chief Reveals Why Big Oil Is Betting on Carbon Capture
Shortly after the November election, Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Darren Woods issued a warning to then president-elect Donald J. Trump: Don’t withdraw from the Paris Climate pact or risk losing U.S. influence over global policy.
Woods’ comments at the COP29 climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, hit home for Zara Summers, chief scientific officer at carbon recycling company LanzaTech Global. Summers has an insider perspective on the issue, having developed and led Exxon’s first biosciences division for nearly a decade.
According to Summers, Woods’ comments should not come as a surprise. Exxon has already made major commitments to carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and infrastructure. Big oil companies like Exxon are well positioned to take advantage of the CCS market because depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers are seen as primary storage sites.
Summers discussed why major oil companies, particularly Exxon, have reversed course and begun embracing more decarbonization initiatives. She also shared insights from her time at Exxon, including her reasons for leaving, as well as LanzaTech's work in this field.
On her experience at Exxon: [In Exxon’s biosciences division] we did everything from algae biofuels, cellulosic biofuels, biochemicals and bio lubricants. We supported bioremediation efforts as well as microbial influenced corrosion experimentation because that’s a trillion-dollar problem for pipelines around the world. Then, during the pandemic, when we had to take a step back from the lab work, I focused on helping Exxon Mobil build a strategy around nature-based solutions. They have over 11 million acres of land that they either lease or own around the world. So, what a massive footprint to leverage for nature-based solutions. With that, we were looking to build their corporate strategy on where and when nature-based solutions could come into play for them, especially around their own assets.
On why she left Exxon: As a part of my position there, I did a lot of due diligence work on technologies we could potentially license or bring in-house. LanzaTech was one of those technologies on which I was leading the due diligence team. After spending two years visiting the commercial plant in China and spending so much time with the executive team at LanzaTech, I called up [LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren] and said, I'm not seeing the ball moving fast enough from a biology perspective at Exxon Mobil. Do you need me? Do you have a role for someone like me? And at that time, the founder was thinking of stepping back, so I transitioned into being a vice president under him and then taking over his role of leading all of our science teams.
Honestly, the reason I left was we did an excellent job setting things up, testing things out, doing proof of concept, but I just never saw that full commitment to develop and deploy a new technology. I mean, they were one of the last to move on climate goal setting, and they had record profits. And I think it's a shame because who has the money to do it? Who has the massive scientific bench to do it? It's someone like an Exxon.
On Darren Woods’ warning to Trump: When Darren came out and said he supports the Paris agreement, of course he does. It makes business sense for them because for CCS to work you need somewhere to put CO2. And when people say saline aquifers, that means an old oil field and who has old oil fields? Oil companies. By pushing CCS forward, they are going to bring in more business for oil fields that otherwise would be a loss. So it makes sense, right? They should clamor for a carbon tax because they're the ones that are going to be able to build a whole business around sequestering carbon.
On LanzaTech’s technology: We take industrial emissions from heavy industry like steel, oil and gas refining, you name it. If it's spewing out CO2 or carbon monoxide, we can divert that through one of our bioreactors. It's like a brewery, but we run continuous and there's no sugar involved, so we make ethanol from what would be a waste stream.
We're operating at six commercial plants around the world with a lot more in the pipeline. But really we're an engineering company that’s packaged around a really important biological catalyst, a living catalyst that's a bacteria with one of the oldest metabolisms on Earth. … We have about 120 different projects at various stages in our pipeline, about 70 projects in the economic-analysis phase, and 30 to 40 in our early-stage engineering phase. And then we have about 13 in the advanced engineering stage. We have one project that is post FID (final investment decision) that is going into construction, and that project is in India. We're finding that India is on the front foot in terms of the energy transition and is able to move quite swiftly compared to other regions with their regulatory environment and appetite for waste-based solutions.
