The North Sea, Northern Europe’s rough sea that divides the British Isles and mainland Europe and which was the birthplace for Europe’s oil and gas wealth, has entered a new age of storing rather than emitting CO2.
The British chemical giant, INEOS, is leading the carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, the first of its kind, on a commercial scale, to store carbon. Through the project, Greensand Future, on the former Danish Nini oil field.
It will see the company inject liquefied CO2 into the depleted oil reservoirs of the Nini oil field, which INEOS acquired from then DONG Energy (now Orsted) in 2017 at a depth of 1,800 meters beneath the ocean seabed.
It will commence operations in early 2026 and become the first CCS project fully operational within the European Union (EU).
‘Transformational‘
INEOS Energy Europe has hailed the project as transformational, saying that, initially, the project will store 400,000 tons of CO2 annually, increasing to as much as 8 million tons annually by 2030.
They believe the project could go beyond capturing Danish historical emissions: “Denmark has the potential to actually store more than several hundred years of our own emissions. We are able to create an industry where we can support Europe in actually storing a lot of the CO2 here,” Mads Gade, chief executive of INEOS Energy Europe, proclaimed.
The Greensand project has signed deals with Danish biogas facilities that will see it bury their captured carbon emissions into the now depleted reservoirs on the Nini oil field.
Another part of realising the ambitious CCS project, a CO2 terminal has been built on the Danish North Sea port of Esbjerg, which historically has been famous for one of Denmark’s key fishing ports, but in recent years has diversified into one of Denmark’s key clean energy hubs. The CO2 terminal will temporarily store the liquefied gas.
Also supporting the project, in the Netherlands, a purpose-built vessel named ‘Carbon Destroyer 1’ is currently under construction.
A contentious technology
Many environmentalists and green groups are strongly opposed to CCS, often labelling it as a ‘false climate solution’, and argue that it would give the fossil fuel sector a license to keep exploring and extracting fossil fuels, as there is no climate crisis.
However, the majority of the world’s climate scientists say it is a necessary evil if we are to avoid dangerous runaway climate change, and the technology has been acknowledged in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate assessment reports.
Unsurprisingly, Gade is among the proponents of scaling up CCS, arguing it is one of the best instruments we have to cut emissions. The EU also keen to drive the technology forward, has proposed developing at least 250 million tons of CO2 storage per year by 2040.
How viable is CCS?
While many have also questioned the viability of the technology and pointed out, it is, as of yet, a technology unproven at a commercial scale. However, a Danish geological survey has concluded that Greensand sandstone rock is well-suited for storing liquefied CO2.
Critics, such as Greenpeace and other green groups, believe this is nothing but greenwashing by INEOS, which is often criticised for sports and greenwashing through its investments in sports. As INEOS publicly are keen to talk about in its own words, ‘a groundbreaking project’, they do not shout as loudly about a newly opened North Sea oil field they are amongst the bidders for the rights to operate.
However, even if the Greensand project reaches the anticipated annual capture of 8 million tonnes by 2030, it still only represents a drop in the ocean and is only a fraction of the 38 billion tons of CO2 that was emitted globally last year.
Anders Lorenzen is the founding Editor of A greener life, a greener world.
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