Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change Heavy Engineering Solutions for High-Emission Problems | Ep250: Emmanouil Kakaras
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Mar 25, 2026 Emmanouil Kakaras, engineer, academic, and Senior Advisor at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, draws on decades in energy engineering and decarbonization. He talks gas turbines pushing thermodynamic limits. He compares hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic fuels. He revisits carbon capture, CCS projects for cement and industry, and industrial long-duration storage and power-to-X options.
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Japan Combines CCS With Cross-Border CO2 Logistics
- Japan pursues ambitious national carbon capture programs and cross-border CO2 shipping because domestic geologic storage is limited.
- MHI supplies capture and CO2 shipping engineering as part of national strategies.
MHI's Real-World CCS Projects In UK Italy And US
- MHI won the Padeswood cement CCS contract capturing 800,000 tCO2/yr and previously built Petra Nova which captured 1.5 MtCO2/yr for EOR.
- Ravenna was a smaller post-combustion capture tied to reactivating local storage with ENI.
Don't Reject CCS On Principle Use It Where Needed
- Accept end-of-pipe carbon capture for hard-to-abate industrial emissions rather than dismissing CCS on principle.
- Kakaras compares CCS adoption to desulfurization: initially resisted but became standard when society demanded it.