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Nordic countries lead continental ambitions
Currently, “the main limits in Europe are to ensure that the CCUS business case works and to develop shared transport and storage networks”says Mike Hemsley.
The first results could come from the Nordic countries, real laboratories.
At the forefront, Finland aims to be CO2 negative by 2040, while Sweden is leading the development of technologies for extracting energy from biomass (wood, etc.) with capture and storage of the CO2 emitted (BECCS).
Thanks to its oil industry, Norway could become the EU’s main storage sink. The country already hosts the first two wells in Europe, recalls Mike Hemsley.
Finally, Iceland, a land of projects, is trying its hand at storing carbon under mineral form to transform it into solid carbonate.
Like the Nordics, the British have a narrow lead on these issues. In addition to relatively large budgets, the authorities are evaluating the possibility of tracing the sustainability of carbon credits and simplifying the territorial network of CCUS projects.
France relies on its forests
In Western Europe, France is betting, in particular, on its offshore and forestry storage potential. In this sense, it has ambitious objectives to offset its residual 80 MteqCO2/year by 2050.
The National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC) – version 2 – thus provides that 35 MteqCO2/year will be offset directly thanks to forests and 20 MteqCO2/year by the products of these forests. Wood used in construction indeed conserves the CO2 stored over its lifetime, while leaving room for new plantations.
Nevertheless, as Clea Kolster, scientific manager at Lowcarbon Capital and speaker at the event, points out, forests expose “very high risk”, particularly linked to the fires which are multiplying and intensifying all over the continent.
The remaining 25 MteqCO2/year would be offset by better land use, BECCS techniques, as well as new CCUS technologies.
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Franco-German skepticism
However, Joseph Hajjar, head of office at the Directorate General for Energy and Climate (DGEC) and guest for the event, expressed a certain skepticism of the French on the development of new technologies.
“When we included the objective of carbon neutrality in the law, many parliamentarians asked that this objective be defined without technological capture”he gives as an example.
This illustrates a certain fear of “to fall into techno-solutionism, to perpetrate the use of fossil fuels”he observes.
Finally, Germany’s historical and legal opposition to carbon storage on its territory has softened since the new government coalition agreement. Several research and development programs are thus being studied.
The distrust of the two locomotives of the EU therefore makes Benjamin Tincq say that there is « a difference in perception that is very clear between North America and Europe”but who is in the process of “fortunately, to evolve”.
Europe is therefore still lagging behind, since the United States has already committed cumulative budgets exceeding 6 billion dollars, reveals Clea Kolster, but part of which is allocated to optimizing oil production, notes Joseph Hajjar.
As a source of encouragement, Mike Hemsley states that certain CCUS techniques ” would be less costly than CO2 emissions at current prices per tonne [sur le marché carbone] ». Nevertheless, investors remain cautious, due to the “risk of future fluctuations in prices per ton”.
10 billion for energy systems by 2050
In addition, for energy systems alone, Western countries will have to capture and store more than 10 billion tonnes of CO2 per year by 2050 according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Even if Mathilde Fajardy, analyst at the IEA and panelist of the event, notes that the last five years are “very promising” the efforts to be accumulated by 2050 represent… 250 times current capacities.
To play its cards right, Europe could rely on its lead in terms of standardization and normalization processes, as well as on its carbon market, the largest in the world.
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