The first plant to capture CO₂ from waste incineration is now being realised.

‘Today’s deal will see the state, the city of Oslo and Celsio work together to realise the world’s first carbon capture plant based on waste incineration. Oslo will thus be able to meet its ambitious citywide climate goals and demonstrate to other European cities how carbon emissions from responsible waste incineration can be cut,’ says Jannicke Gerner Bjerkås, Director of CCS at Hafslund Oslo Celsio, in a press release.

Without the carbon capture plant, it would be impossible to achieve the city of Oslo’s ambitious climate goals. Celsio’s waste incineration plant is the biggest carbon emitter in the city and is solely responsible for 17% of Oslo’s carbon emissions.

‘I would like to thank everyone who has helped ensure we reach this milestone. It is all thanks to your hard work that we have made it to today. We are now ready to begin construction at Klemetsrud together with our partners. Detailed design work begins today, and by August we will embark upon the first physical works on site. I look forward to inviting you all to the official opening in 2026 when we will commission Oslo’s most critical climate initiative,’ says CEO Knut Inderhaug.

 

Part of the CCS project ‘Longship’

The carbon capture plant at Klemetsrud falls under the Norwegian state’s carbon capture and storage project known as ‘Longship’. Today’s deal is a boost to the project as a whole, and will demonstrate that waste incineration plants across Norway and Europe can achieve significant cuts in their emissions by using CCS. In addition to the plant at Klemetsrud, Longship also include the carbon capture plant hosted at Heidelberg Materials in Brevik. Northern Lights is responsible for the transportation and storage of CO₂ deep below the seabed in the North Sea.

Source: Press release from Hafslund Oslo Celsio

Last year, Canada joined the “club” of the more than 70 countries with a goal of net-zero emissions. In the 2022 federal budget presented in April, the Trudeau government proposed a fiscal plan to support investment in CCUS and DACCS projects. CAD 2.6 billion (around NOK 20 billion) has been earmarked in the budget for 2022-2026, but the support is expected to total CAD 8.6 billion by 2030. The goal is cut national emissions by 15 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030. 

Surveying carbon storage opportunities

In March, the Government of Alberta designated six locations and operators to survey carbon storage opportunities. The goal is to establish an open network for this sort of storage in the province. The initiatives announced have received a mixed response. The CEO of Cenovus, one of Canada’s major oil companies that focuses on oil sands and is based in Alberta, recently said that the authorities have not done nearly enough to help companies achieve their climate goals. Alberta is unquestionably the province of Canada with the largest production of oil and gas and the largest carbon emissions. According to an article in Nature published in 2020, Canada is one of the countries with the largest greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil produced.

This is a part of the CCS environmental analysis, written by Gassnova’s analysis team. Please visit our CCS dictionary if there are professional expressions or abbreviations in this text you are not familiar with.

Since 2016, HeidelbergCement has worked to develop and test a new process for cement production (LEILAC), which will contribute to reducing the costs of carbon capture. A pilot facility was built in 2019 in Lixhe, Belgium, with a capacity of around 80,000 tonnes per year. The results were published last autumn and show that the process works as intended and that carbon capture can be achieved without having to use additional energy.

 

Amine process more expensive than LEILAC

The study estimated that the cost of carbon capture to be €12.5 per tonne of CO2 before compression compared to €20 for a traditional amine-based process, like the one used at Brevik. The analysis concludes that if carbon produced from the energy required for the amine process is also to be captured, the total cost of carbon capture using amine technology will be around €50 per tonne of CO2 – significantly more expensive than the LEILAC process. This also means that the investment cost of the LEILAC process, both for retrofitting and new installations, is significantly lower compared to an amine-based process. Heidelberg recently decided to continue LEILAC in a slightly larger pilot in Hannover, Germany. The purpose of the pilot is to validate the costs of building and using the technology, as well as the conditions associated with the integration and operation of the facility. The pilot is slated to be in operation in 2023.

This is a part of the CCS environmental analysis, written by Gassnova’s analysis team. 

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In its latest analysis of the consequences for Europe on its journey to the climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, Bloomberg points out the need for significant additional investments and the rapid phasing out of fossil fuel-based energy. The analysis was made by comparing a “net zero” scenario with a scenario with less political interference and a stronger focus on the economy, technology and pure market forces. Bloomberg concludes that the climate goal requires a rapid decrease in oil and gas consumption in Europe by 2030.

 

Demand for fossil fuel-based energy falls

In the NetZero Scenario, European demand for oil falls by more than 50% to 9.5 million barrels per day, and demand for natural gas falls by almost 25% by 2030. This is primarily due to rapid electrification or a transition to green hydrogen. This requires more than double current energy investments to achieve climate goals, and additional investments will primarily be seen in wind and green hydrogen.

 

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Last autumn, the EU announced five “missions” related to key social issues. One of these was “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities”. After a competition, the European Commission announced in April which cities were selected. In Norway, Trondheim, Oslo and Stavanger are among the 100 chosen cities. The aim of this focus, beyond the cities being climate-neutral by 2030, is to create experimental and creative networks of cities that can share knowledge and experience with other cities with the same ambition.

 

Defining city emissions

Emissions that occur within a city’s boundaries as well as emissions related to a city’s own energy and heat consumption, regardless of the city’s boundaries, are what are currently regarded as a city’s emissions and which cities must focus on in order to call themselves “climate-neutral”. This includes industry, transport and waste management, and corresponds to “scopes” 1 and 2 according to the commonly used international methodology to categorise emissions. Scope 3 – which in this context is defined as indirect emissions that occur outside a city’s boundaries which are caused by the residents’ consumption – is not included here.

 

Individual consumption patterns affect emissions

A study published in 2018 by C40 (a network of climate-leading international cities), which assessed emissions from 79 international cities, concludes that 2/3 of emissions associated with residents’ consumption occur outside of the city itself. Various other studies have also shown that changes in individual consumption patterns and levels have a significant impact on total emissions and are among the more affordable climate initiatives in a socioeconomic perspective.

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Five major international companies in finance, tech and consulting have come together and set up a fund (“Frontier”) worth almost USD 1 billion to buy carbon credits from operators that can offer credits based on carbon negative solutions (CDR). The fund will buy credits from operators offering carbon removal from the atmosphere with solutions at a cost that may fall over time to less than USD 100 per tonne of CO2.  The purpose of this is to support scale-up of CDR technologies and to develop a market for these carbon credits.

Frontier hopes to evolve into a marketplace for other operators wanting to support these sorts of initiatives. The concept itself is based on what is known as an “Advance Market Commitment” – where private and public operators come together to incentivise the development of markets for mutual benefit. The concept was also used for the development of vaccines.

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In April, the IEA (International Energy Agency) released their latest analysis of the conditions behind the increasing interest in DACCS (Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage), as well as assessments of what is needed for the technology to be adopted. In the short term, DACCS will be able to offset emissions that are more difficult to cut (carbon credits), and in the longer term, it will help remove historic emissions (CDR – Carbon Dioxide Removal). Furthermore, CO2 from the atmosphere may be used in the future to produce materials or for synthetic fuels (DACCU).

DACCS should be scaled up

The IEA believes that to achieve the goal of net zero emissions before 2050, DACCS should be scaled up to 85 million tonnes of CO2 in 2030 and 980 million tonnes in 2050. The cost per tonne of captured carbon could fall to under $100 in 2030 – with sufficient R&D (Research and Development) and scale-up. In comparison, around 8,000 tonnes of CO2 are captured through DAC systems today, while global operational CCS projects have a combined capture and storage capacity of around 40 million tonnes of CO2 per year. For DACCS to be a viable solution, the IEA believes that internationally recognised certifications must be set up for the solution, and that niches willing to pay for DACCS must be exploited.

Significant amount of CDR is needed to achieve goals

The IPCC’s latest report dedicated a lot of space to CDR solutions (including DACCS). The IPCC works on multiple scenarios and as such presents a greater sample space for the use of DACCS than the IEA. This is also an expression of significant uncertainty about how climate goals should be achieved and the relevance of DACCS going forwards. However, overall, the IPCC assumes a significant amount of CDR from now up to 2100 in order for the world to stay within the 2°C goal, in the region of several hundred to over 1,000 gigatonnes removed in the next 80 years. In comparison, current total global greenhouse gas emissions are around 60 gigatonnes of CO2e. The IPCC emphasises the multiple important benefits of DACCS, including scalability, measurable additionality and flexibility around localisation. The challenges of DACCS are primarily linked to its costs and the large amounts of energy required.

USA investing in DACCS

Last year, the United States Congress added their name to the list of new major investors in DACCS by approving USD 3.5 billion for the development DACCS hubs over a five year period. The international collaborative venture “Mission Innovation” has set a goal of 100 million tonnes of stored carbon by 2030 through the use of various CDR technologies, including DACCS.

 

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The pilot study shows that a carbon capture plant at the cement factory in Slite on Gotland has the potential to be a carbon-positive project. In line with an increasing share of biofuel, the plant can capture and store more carbon dioxide than the factory emits, says Cementa in a press release.

CCS possible in Slite

The plant is set to be complete by 2030 and will capture and store up to 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. This is equivalent to 3% of Sweden’s total emissions.

Energy need is a critical factor

With the help of a grant from the Swedish Energy Agency of SEK 51 million, Cementa is about to begin a feasibility study involving investments of SEK 124 million. This involves, among other things, more precisely defining how the plant should be built and meeting its energy needs.

Energy needs are the most critical factor for establishing the plant.

– By 2030, we should be able use climate-positive concrete in construction in Sweden. We can achieve this if we are able to cut carbon emissions from cement production, and CCS is the way of achieving this at large scale. The Swedish building and construction sector shows that the demand exists, and we are ready. I look forward to constructive collaboration with all the stakeholders involved, primarily on gaining authorisations and the energy needs, so that Sweden can continue to be a pioneering country when it comes to the industrial green transition, says Karin Comstedt Webb, Senior Vice President at HeidelbergCement Sweden.

Source: cementa.se

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When Mark Rutte’s fourth term began in December last year, it was with a declaration of significantly more ambitious climate goals than previously. The EU’s 55% reduction by 2030 has been topped by the Dutch government with a goal of a 60% reduction in emissions, followed by further cuts of 10% every five years. To become less reliant on gas imports, two new nuclear power plants are needed, as are efforts to increase the adoption of CCS.

As a result of this, the authorities announced in March that the SDE++ subsidy scheme will be strengthened and that €13 billion will be available at this year’s funding announcement, a significant increase from previous years. The scheme is intended for projects developing renewable energy, hydrogen production, CCS and other industrial climate initiatives.  The Dutch government had previously set a ceiling on its CCS support of 7.2 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030. This has now increased to 8.7 million tonnes of CO2. Support from SDE++ is provided as a contract for differences and is awarded according to an auction principle.

This year’s auction will take place from June to September. The first auction is for projects asking for a maximum support of €65 per tonne of CO2. Last year, the CCS project Porthos received funding from this scheme.

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When the new German government entered office before Christmas, it was announced that they would increase production of renewable energy by 100 TWh per year by 2030 compared to its original target, and double its green hydrogen electrolyser capacity to 10 GW. According to the German National Hydrogen Strategy, this should provide 28 TWh of hydrogen. The strategy estimates that there will be a need for 90-100 TWh of hydrogen by 2030. In order to have enough hydrogen available in the transitional phase, it will be necessary to import primarily green hydrogen. However, an analysis released last autumn by Fraunhofer points out the challenges related to the availability of hydrogen on global import markets, and that solutions for the transport of large quantities of hydrogen are still not mature and will probably not be in place before 2030. In the past month, there have, however, been several reports of Memorandums of Understanding on deliveries of both green and blue hydrogen from countries such as Australia, the UAE, and Norway.

The situation for blue hydrogen has changed somewhat in the last few months. According to DNV and other stakeholders, it is not likely that natural gas will be used for hydrogen production due to uncertainty about future gas deliveries from Russia. In an analysis from Rystad Energy, it is pointed out that the rise in natural gas prices over the last 6 months means that blue hydrogen is now losing out to green hydrogen. Today, natural gas accounts for around 30% of Germany’s energy mix, and is almost exclusively based on imports, and primarily through gas pipelines. Energy loss in the process of converting natural gas into hydrogen is typically 30%.

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