• In line with our ambition to become the most innovative, customer-centric, inclusive and sustainable materials science company in the world, Dow designed its roadmap to enable a first-phase reduction of 1.4 million metric tons of CO2 annually at Dow’s Terneuzen facility.
• This three-phase plan would use clean hydrogen and other breakthrough technologies to reduce CO2 emissions from the production processes.
• Would enable green jobs as well as production of thousands of consumer goods with lower CO2 footprint that help enable end-users to reduce their own CO2 footprints.
• Project is currently moving through Dow’s project management process, preliminary investment decision is expected in 2022.
• Public and private collaboration will be essential to drive successful implementation.

In the first phase, the plan foresees the construction of a clean hydrogen plant where by-products from core production processes would be converted into hydrogen and CO2. The hydrogen would be used as a clean fuel in the production process. The CO2 would be captured and stored until alternative technologies develop, and Dow will also look for ways to enable usage of the CO2 in its processes rather than storing it.

The hydrogen plant is expected to startup in 2026 and would allow Dow in Terneuzen to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 1.4 million tons per year. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 300,000 cars.

The first phase would also include additional investments in site infrastructure for CO2 liquefaction, air separation, hydrogen distribution and CO2 transport.

The project will create green jobs. Building the new hydrogen plant and the associated infrastructure is expected to create 3,500 to 4,000 engineering and construction jobs over a period of 3 years and 400 to 500 permanent jobs at Dow, in the region and across associated service providers.

In the second phase, by 2030, Dow will capture CO2 from its ethylene oxide plant and replace some gas turbines with electrical motor drives. This will avoid a further 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

The third and final phase of the plan will develop and implement additional breakthrough technologies to replace fuel usage in the production processes. An example is Dow’s previously announced collaboration with Shell to electrify ethylene steam cracking furnaces. These furnaces currently rely on fuel combustion, which makes them CO2-emission intensive when not fired on clean hydrogen. Switching to electrical cracking with clean electricity will reduce the CO2 footprint of the production process to near zero emissions.

Commenting on the plan, Dow Benelux President Anton van Beek said: “We are part of a vital and critical industry – we supply building blocks for thousands of consumer goods, many of which provide CO2 reducing benefits to our customers and the value chain. We want to continue to supply those products while enhancing our long-standing commitment to sustainability, so we need and want to adapt how we manufacture those products to help address climate change. With this roadmap we aim to enable low-CO2 products to be made in the Netherlands.”

A preliminary investment decision on the implementation of Dow’s Terneuzen roadmap is expected in 2022. Van Beek commented, “To reach a positive decision, we are completing feasibility studies and continue to perfect new technologies. In addition, public-private collaboration will be of utmost importance. The scale and complexity of the challenge is such that only through the collaboration of industry, academia, government and others, can we turn the tide on climate change. We encourage the Dutch government to continue to partner with industry and incentivize investment in clean energy and related technologies to support the long-term competitiveness of Dutch industry while reducing carbon emissions and achieving net carbon neutrality.”

These efforts also support Dow’s broader targets to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, eliminate plastic waste in the environment and increase its positive impacts on customers, business and society. Since 2005, Dow has reduced overall greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent. And today, Dow is the number one purchaser of clean energy in the chemicals industry and in the top 25 among global corporations for clean energy purchases. The Company’s site in Tarragona, Spain, for example, now sources 100 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources.