The Decommission Boom - A Path to Carbon Neutrality

Asset decommissioning is a large and fast-growing business. However the full comprehension of the program terms for both cost and the complexity of this execution phase in an assets lifecycle is regularly misunderstood. This presentation will discuss the ways to find the right model for asset decommissioning. As the world moves quickly on the path to carbon neutrality, replacing our aging assets with a clean-energy option is a critical step towards the reduction of large (GHG) greenhouse gas producing assets. As a part of our enterprise mission throughout the world in all industrial sectors, the immediate "turn on the switch" to carbon neutral will be met with increasing challenges of supply and demand and our new race to the green planet. Now, seen as a corporate responsibility rather than a burden, our mission bears greater challenges than just reducing carbon, and poses another layer of complexity when deciding what, when and how to decommission while balancing significant capital investments to remain sustainable. If our current practices for our assets life-cycle; from design through to operational phase are without standardization, we then introduce greater technical challenges, economic cost and psycho-social challenges that affect our workforce retention during the end of the assets life. While we collectively align to combat our climate crisis, we also enter deeper into a "Throwaway" Society. World-wide decommissioning has become a "hot topic" as we see many assets reaching their end of life, while at the same time climate change takes center stage. As the increased public eye adds another layer of scrutiny over asset decommissioning, we need to create an efficient and effective program that will accept "green" decommissioning, supporting a circular economy through recycling and waste reduction, while looking towards ways to reuse existing assets for renewable energy transformation.