Page 66 - European Energy Innovation - winter 2017 publication
P. 66
66 Winter 2017 European Energy Innovation
CCS IN EUROPE
Overview of CCS activities
in Europe
By Francesco Corona
CCS STATE OF PLAY IN EUROPE the power sector, a strong potential
The status of Carbon Capture and lies in tackling industrial emissions
Storage (CCS) in Europe has been from steel, cement, chemicals
significantly changing in the past two and gas refining plants. Few CO2
years. From a mainly power sector CO2 reduction alternatives are available to
emissions reduction technology, CCS decarbonise such industrial sectors
has grown to be recognised as the and CCS represents the best cost-
only sensible and sustainable way of effective option.
addressing emissions across Europe’s
diverse industrial sectors. These initiatives together with
additional technology improvements
The global CCS fleet counts 17 large- are explained in the following sections.
scale facilities already operating and
four coming on stream with an overall LARGE SCALE CCS FACILITIES
CO2 capture capacity potential of Five large-scale CCS facilities are in
37 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), operation or development stage in
which is equal to have 8 million cars Europe, all of which use (or intend to
removed from the road each year. use) dedicated offshore geological
In Europe the two operating CCS storage. As mentioned above, Norway
facilities, Sleipner and Snøhvit, located is home to the two operational
in the Norwegian part of the North large-scale CCS facilities in Europe
Sea, have exceeded 23 million tonnes both in natural gas processing, which
of CO2 captured and stored in the 20 combined have 30 years of operational
years up to 2017. experience.
CCS has a great potential to contribute The first full chain Industrial CCS facility
to the Paris Agreement targets, which is also being developed in Norway
would require having approximately and is based on the feasibility studies
120 thousand Mtpa of CO2 captured completed by Gassnova (Norwegian
and stored at global level between state enterprise for CCS) for the
now and 2050. As stated by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and
International Energy Agency (IEA), Energy in 2016.
carbon capture and storage should
contribute to reducing European CO2 In April 2017, Gassnova awarded
emissions by 21% in 2050. the three industrial emission sites
that participated in the initial
Notwithstanding the crucial role CCS feasibility study – Norcem AS (cement
has as climate change mitigation plant), Yara Norge AS (ammonia plant)
technology, its large-scale deployment and Klemetsrudanlegget AS (waste-to-
in Europe has been very slow, mainly energy-recovery plant) – with financial
due to a series of policy reversals support to further study carbon
and the failure of several large-scale capture at their respective facilities.
facilities to reach a final investment
decision. A total of 360 million NOK (€40
million) has been granted to continue
If CCS has not yet enjoyed success in the studies of full-scale demonstration
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