Carbon Capture and Storage: The world’s first commercial storage of carbon dioxide in the seabed is being built in Norway. The gas is to be liquefied and injected around 110 kilometers off the coast, 2,600 meters deep under the North Sea
Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland (right) visits the project near Bergen: the plant is scheduled to start operations in 2025
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Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland came especially for this: at the end of September he officially opened the “Northern Lights” reception terminal in Øygarden. Here, on a chain of islands off the city of Bergen, the first commercial project for underground carbon dioxide storage is being built. “This is a historic moment, not only for Norway as a nation, but for the world,” explained Terje Aasland.
It’s about CO2 capture, transport and underground storage – English “Carbon Capture & Storage” – CCS for short. Starting next year, liquefied greenhouse gases from industrial plants are to be delivered here by ship on a large scale in order to then pump them towards the seabed via this terminal. This technology is considered to play a key role in decarbonization: Some industrial processes only work if they produce greenhouse gases, for example in fertilizer production or in the cement industry. This means: Such technologies can only become climate-neutral if the resulting carbon dioxide is captured and stored – instead of escaping into the atmosphere.
Several fossil companies are involved in the project called “Northern Lights”: Equinor is a merger of the Norwegian Statoil with the oil and gas activities of Norwegian Hydrothe Norwegian state holds 67 percent of the shares. Besides, they are French TotalEnergies and Shell involved: First company to be proven to have known about its climate-damaging business practices since 1971; Shell had just been sentenced to more climate protection in the Netherlands – and then relocated its headquarters in London.
Less CO2 than a week of traffic in Germany
In its first phase, the planned storage volume is up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 annually. To get a feel for this amount: Last year, the transport sector in Germany alone caused 2.8 million tons every week. The effect on climate protection is therefore not particularly great, although the investors want to increase the storage capacity “to 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year in line with market demand”.
The greenhouse cargo is to be stored in Troll oil and gas field under the North Sea, which is now exploited and has a geological sandstone formation. This has been researched, for example, by Prof. Klaus Wallmann, head of the Marine Geosystems research unit at the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel: According to this, there are no large cavities in this rock formation, but millions of microscopically small pore spaces between individual sand grains into which CO2 molecules under pressure can be pressed in.
The CO2 comes back into the deep sandstone layers from which oil and gas were previously extracted. Suitable storage locations are porous sandstone layers overlaid by impermeable clay layers that can withstand the high pressure with which the CO2 is pressed into the underlying rock. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin next year: liquid greenhouse gases from Norwegian industrial plants will do the same of the German building materials manufacturer Heidelberg Zement be brought to Øygarden by ship. There are also supply contracts with the Danish energy company Örsted and the Dutch fertilizer producer Yara.
CCS is undesirable in Germany
The “Northern Lights” project is part of the “Langskip” program of the Norwegian state: The Norwegian CO2 emissions from the cement and concrete industry are to be captured and stored for a planned 2.7 billion euros. Large-scale CCS projects are also being developed in Denmark, the Netherlands and Great Britain. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) maintains the two degree target no longer achievable without CCS technology. Environmental groups criticize CCS as a deceptive packagebecause this creates the impression that “the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate can be reduced,” judges Greenpeace, for example.
In Germany there was in Lusatia a CCS demonstration power plant: Since 2008, Vattenfall has been operating a 30 megawatt plant using lignite that has been captured CO2 stored underground near Potsdam. However, the technology is unpopular among the population because they fear leaks and thus poisoning of the groundwater. The Carbon Dioxide Storage Act, passed in 2012, has so far banned CCS in Germany; Vattenfall dismantled its system in 2014 due to the political framework.
There is currently a rethink, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Green Alliance) announced in February the key points of a “carbon management strategy” proposes: On the one hand, it is intended to develop the legal framework to permanently store carbon dioxide in the seabed. On the other hand, it is intended to mobilize billions of dollars to build a pipeline and pumping infrastructure. So that in a few years a facility like the one now in Øygarden, Norway, can be inaugurated in Germany.
