Norway steps up carbon capture and storage research

Norway has stepped up measures across the country to develop a full-scale carbon capture and storage project by 2020, according to ministers.

The decision was announced by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy on Friday, which said that it would “change [the] direction” of its commitments to carbon capture and storage (CCS) research.

The new strategy will see the full-scale carbon dioxide funding given to the Technology Centre Mongstad facility will be increased by 400million kroner (£42m).

The project, which was described by the Norwegian prime minister as the Norwegian “moon landing”, will still be pursued by vendors at the facility.

Vergar Stokset, head of communication at TCM said, “It is important to stress that the government are only abandoning the full scale project at Mongstad. But for us, there won’t be much change; the government is in fact increasing our funding.”

Speaking to Blue & Green Tomorrow, he added, “We’re already in dialogue with new vendors, including Siemens, Aker, Hitachi and Mitsubishi to re-use the amine plant, and we have fourteen further vendors that have expressed an interest in working with us to develop technology at our available site.”

CCS technology would see millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide transported from plants to offshore sites, where it will be injected into porous rock deep beneath the ground.

Stokset added that, in order to incentivise companies to act voluntarily, politicians must strengthen regulations and charges for emissions: “It is too cheap to emit carbon dioxide. We hope politicians will increase the cost of emitting in order to engage companies voluntarily to look for cheaper alternatives.”

He said that once companies saw a commercial opportunity in the market, they would fully engage to work towards reducing carbon emissions.

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