Carbon Capture and Storage in Norway

In March 2008 the Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Mrs Aslaug Haga stated that the Norwegian government would support three Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration projects. While stating that she supported the development of renewable energy options she argued that "no matter how hard we try to develop renewables; coal, oil and gas will be with us, and will continue to be our main source of energy supply for several decades to come. This is why CCS is important. We have no choice but to succeed in developing CCS. We quite simply have to make it more environmentally friendly to use oil, gas and coal. Nothing less is sustainable."

Projects

 * European CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad, a carbon capture and storage demonstration project aimed at testing "CO2 capture on two types of flue gases using two capture technologies. One source of emissions is the existing catalytic cracker facility at the Mongstad Refinery and the other is emissions from the gas fired combined heat and power plant (CHP), which is under construction." In 2008 the objective was to have the plant built by 2011.


 * a full scale CCS plant at Mongstad with the aim it would be "operational in 2014"; and


 * a full scale retrofit capture plant connected to a gas fired power plant at Karsto. In 2008 the the Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Mrs Aslaug Haga stated the "facility is planned to capture 1 million tonnes of CO2 from the exhaust gas at the power plant and subsequently transport the CO2 by pipeline to safe storage in geological formations under the sea bed. Final investment decision is to be made in 2009." It is intended that public funds be used for the project.

In addition, Statoil is operating the Sleipner Carbon Capture and Storage project where approximately 1 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide from the natural gas produced at Sleipner is being injected into a sub-sea aquifer. The project began in 1996 as a way of avoiding Norwegian government taxes on cO2.

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 * Carbon Capture and Storage in the United Kingdom
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in the United States