CO1800 from Belgium has been stored under the Danish seabed at a depth of 2 metres for a few weeks now. It works like this: In a chemical plant in Antwerp, the carbon dioxide produced during production is separated, liquefied, loaded onto a ship tanker and brought to Denmark. There it is pumped into the depths and pressed into the sandstone layers of the depleted Nini oil field. This huge CO2 storage facility was built by a consortium led by the British chemical company Ineos and BASF's subsidiary Wintershall Dea, heavily funded by the Danish state. By 2025, up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year are to be stored here, five years later up to 8 million tons. The latter corresponds to more than 10 percent of Denmark's current annual CO2 emissions.
Hanna Decker
Editor in business.
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According to the companies, the Greensand project is the first in the world to transport CO2 across borders and store it in a geological reservoir on the high seas for climate protection purposes. The technology behind it is called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), i.e. CO2 capture and storage. Scientists agree that in the future it will also be necessary to use this technique to limit global warming to a tolerable level. Because at the latest with some industrial processes, the imagination stops as to how complete decarbonization should succeed. The production of cement, lime, glass or ceramics produces emissions for which there is no technical solution in sight far and wide. Some emissions from animal husbandry or waste incineration are also difficult or impossible to avoid. Accordingly, the researchers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once again emphasized the role of CO2 storage techniques in their latest synthesis report.
The European Commission has recognized the importance of CCS, in the planned Net-Zero Industry Act, Brussels proposes to store 2030 million tons of CO50 in disused oil and gas fields in the EU by 2, six times as much 20 years later. Britain also has ambitious plans. Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt recently boastfully announced "20 billion pounds" (22.6 billion euros) for CCS projects. The fine print of his budget speech stated that the money was to be allocated over a period of twenty years. It is unclear how the financing will come about, how much of it will be taxpayers' money and how much will be a levy for energy customers. According to the Ministry of Finance, the projects are expected to create 50,000 jobs. Hunt is pushing to start work quickly. He wanted to see "shovel stitches next year," he said in his budget speech.
Great Britain wants to store up to 30 tons per year underground
After all, two specific sites for large-scale CCS projects were selected two years ago, namely the East Coast cluster in the Teesside and Humber region of north-east England to store millions of tonnes of CO2 under the North Sea, and the Hynet cluster in the industrial region around Liverpool, Manchester and North Wales, where carbon dioxide is to be pressed into an empty gas field under the Irish Sea. The companies for both projects are already busy concluding contracts with industrial customers, whose emissions they will collect and compress. Hynet also combines large-scale hydrogen production with the capture of carbon dioxide from the gas-fired power plants used. The Acorn cluster in Scotland, which is still considered a "reserve", is also hoping to get the green light soon. The major CCS projects involve well-known energy and industrial groups, such as BP and Drax, Equinor from Norway and Eni from Italy.
Overall, the British government's goal is to capture between 2030 and 20 million tonnes of CO30 annually by 2 and store it underground. This would correspond approximately to the emissions of 10 to 15 million cars with combustion engines. After that, volumes are expected to continue to rise continuously. The CCS plans are also significant in terms of the Kingdom's total emissions. 30 million tons of storage would be about one-thirteenth of the country's current CO2 emissions.
Desires in industry, scepticism among NGOs
And in Germany? Researchers assume that by 2045 – the year in which Germany wants to emit no net emissions – up to 73 million tons of CO2 per year could be captured and geologically injected in Germany. But where the CO2 is to be stored is still completely unclear. So far, CCS has been banned in Germany. Economics Minister Robert Habeck has announced that he will present a carbon management strategy by spring 2024 that will regulate not only capture and storage (CCS), but also the further use of CO2 (CCU) as a raw material in industry.
In industry, this arouses desires. Environmental organizations fear that CCS will serve as an excuse not to push the decarbonization of the industry fast enough. A paper by NABU, Germanwatch, WWF and E3G states that CCS may only be used "where there are no sufficient alternatives" and point out, among other things, the role of new processes, electrification, material efficiency and the expansion of the circular economy. In addition, CCS should "under no circumstances be used in the extraction or production of fossil energy". Greenpeace accuses the German government of wanting to build a "gigantic CO2 disposal infrastructure". However, no one can guarantee that the CO2 will remain permanently underground: "New systemic risks would arise, which would once again have to be borne by future generations as eternal burdens."