Oil nation Norway plans to help fight climate change by capturing and storing Europe’s carbon emissions. CO2 storage: everything you need to know, is a great story about the pros and cons of CO2 storage in a 'industrial' and natural way.
CO2 Storage By The Northern Lights Project
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Schematic of the subsurface going from south to north through the 31/5-7 (Eos) CO2 confirmation well. The CO2 plume extent after 37.5 Mt injection is illustrated in magenta.
The ‘Northern Lights’ project will store captured CO2 emissions in the North Sea. But this procedure is not without risks. The world is facing a climate catastrophe, and despite rapid growth in renewable energy production, some industries continue to emit vast amounts of CO2 during production processes.
Norway and CO2 emissions | DW Documentary
CO2 Producing Industries
Two of these industries are cement and steel, both crucial for the economy. A solution is needed, and Norway believes part of the answer for Europe is carbon capture and storage (CCS). The country has called its CCS project ‘Northern Lights.’ The plan is to capture CO2 emitted from industrial sites, liquefy it, and then transport the liquefied gas via pipelines to be stored in the North Sea, approximately 3000 meters below sea level.
Project director Sverre Overå
Climate Change And CO2
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that the only way to limit the global rise in temperature to a maximum of two degrees is to capture and store many billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases. But in Germany people have protested against the use of carbon capture and storage. The technology has been fraught with problems in the past. And there are other, more natural alternatives.
Peatland use. Peat from Middle European mires was used since the Bronze Age as fuel. Due to scarcity of wood, the intense use of peat started in the 18th century in Germany. Especially in the north of Germany peat was won, also for agricultural use for soil improvement and as litter. In the end of the 19th century complex ditch systems were established to drain the land. As a result more agricultural area was available.
After the Second World War every piece of land was used, which included grassland and field use on peatlands. The most extensive drainage measures and thus most complex degradation of peatlands were carried out in the 1960s (Hydromelioration), whereby huge amounts of nutrients and climate effective gases were set free.
CO2 Storage The Natural Way
One option could be to restore moorlands and bogs. When wet, these store carbon that has been sucked from the air by plants. But many bogs have been drained for farming, and as drained moorlands dry, CO2 is produced, meaning they have become a source of pollution rather than carbon storage. Reversing this and returning them to their carbon storing potential could be relatively inexpensive, as well as being a more natural way of reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
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