Testing times for carbon capture and storage

Seventeen years ago the European Council made a commitment to construct up to twelve carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration plants by 2015. Yet today there is still no CO2 being stored within the EU on anything other than a pilot basis.

Chris Davies is Director of CCS Europe

Still, progress is at last being made. Exactly one year ago, on 31 May 2023, a final investment decision (FID) was taken to build carbon capture facilities at two biogenic power stations in Denmark.

Although Norway has had a CCS plant in operation for nearly 30 years, the signal to start construction of the Kalundborg CO2 Hub was the first of its kind within the EU. Five more FIDs were taken by the end of the year, all in the Netherlands and most for blue hydrogen production.

But this is not remotely sufficient. In its recent Communication on Industrial Carbon Management, the European Commission describes use of the technology as “indispensable”. Some 280 million tonnes of CO2 need to be captured annually by 2040, it says.

Carbon capture is needed to curb emissions from industry and from remaining fossil fuel power production. It is needed to produce blue hydrogen. It is needed to reduce the concentration of CO2 already in the atmosphere and to provide an industrial feedstock to replace fossil fuels. There will be no net zero without its use.

The Kalundborg Hub project is intended by 2026 to start capturing 430,000 tonnes of CO2 annually; the gas then has to be transported for injection into porous rock two kilometres deep off the coast of Norway. The Danish government will be providing financial support for up to 20 years, with payments being made only when the CO2 is permanently stored.

To meet the Commission target, construction of no less than 650 carbon capture plants of similar scale must commence over the next 14 years – or one every eight days. Accelerating CCS deployment on this scale will take extraordinary effort and every day of delay makes it harder to achieve.

Although many projects are approaching the start line so far this year not one has been given the green light to put a shovel in the ground.

The European Commission is playing a positive but relatively passive role. It has secured agreement for the Net Zero Industry Act that requires 50 million tonnes of CO2 storage capacity be made available by 2030. Given that no storage sites are yet in operation, and the geological assessments required for each one proposed will be lengthy, this is seriously ambitious.

The EU Innovation Fund is being used to support promising CCUS schemes. Requirements for the transport of CO2 are being assessed, although the absence still of regulatory standards leaves emitters uncertain as to what capture plant will be required.

But for carbon capture deployment to proceed on the scale demanded the drive must come from Member States, not from the Commission. Progress is being made in Denmark and the Netherlands because governments they have a deployment strategy and have put in place financial support arrangements that can encourage private investment.

In the words of the Commission’s Communication, too many other governments have yet to recognise CCS “as a legitimate and necessary part of the solution to decarbonise.” Yet without the political and financial support of a sponsoring government no CCS project will proceed.

Next month, every Member State is due to publish an updated National Energy and Climate Plan. It is to be hoped that the final versions are an improvement upon the drafts.

Most of these took no account of the Commission’s guidance, gave no indication that a realistic carbon capture deployment strategy was being developed, and failed even to provide an assessment of the quantity of CO2 emitted from industrial sources let alone an indication of how it would be reduced.

The complacency of EU governments must be confronted if the ambitions for 2040 climate policy are to be met. Officials in Brussels can only do so much; what’s needed is for their political bosses to step up and provide political leadership.

It is time for Commissioners to be forthright and loud in challenging national ministers to address the issue, or else to explain how they will achieve industrial decarbonisation without use of carbon capture technology.

It may be regarded as impolite or politically controversial for them to speak out without restraint. But after all, with their term in office coming to an end, what have they got to lose?