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Northern Lights, the consortium operating the world's first commercial carbon storage project, has officially begun operations in Norway, with the first injection of CO2 into the seabed of the North Sea.

The world's first commercial carbon storage project. (Source: Carbon Herald)

The project, led by major oil and gas companies such as Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, aims to capture, transport, and bury CO2 from industrial plants across Europe to prevent its release into the atmosphere and contribute to combating climate change.

According to Northern Lights CEO Tim Heijn, the company has successfully injected and safely stored its first batch of CO2 in a storage tank.

Currently, the project's vessels, facilities, and wells are operating smoothly.

Specifically, after being captured, the CO2 will be liquefied and transported by ship to the Oygarden station near Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. There, the gas will be transferred to large storage tanks and then pumped through a 110km pipeline to the seabed, at a depth of approximately 2.6km, for permanent storage beneath the ocean surface.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has been recognized as an effective tool in combating climate change, particularly important in reducing CO2 emissions from industries that are difficult to decarbonize, such as cement and steel.

The first CO2 injected into Northern Lights' storage tanks originated from the German Heidelberg Materials cement plant, located in Brevik, southeastern Norway.

However, CCS technology still has potential complexity and requires significant costs. Currently, without financial support, industries still prefer to buy carbon credits on the European carbon market rather than invest in CO2 capture, transport, and storage processes.

To date, Northern Lights has signed commercial contracts with three European customers, including the Yara ammonia plant in the Netherlands, two Orsted biofuel plants in Denmark, and the Stockholm Exergi thermal power plant in Sweden.

Thanks to funding primarily from the Norwegian government , the project has the capacity to store up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year and is expected to expand to 5 million tons per year by the end of this decade.

According to VNA

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/mo-cua-nghia-dia-co2-thuong-mai-dau-tien-tren-the-gioi-259536.htm