Although Norway is a significant producer of fossil fuels in the global markets, it is never-the-less investing heavily in carbon capture technology and projects, as well as having a huge number of hydro-electric plants that together are important mitigating factors.
You may have noticed from the previous article about the Nordic Energy Transition, that Norway was sidelined. They are a major producers of oil and gas in the global markets which account for more than 60% of exports and some 24% of GDP in 2024. This puts the country in a different category in terms of energy transition!
However, it would be inappropriate to ignore the significant volume of research and investments in carbon capture projects by SINTEF and other Norwegian universities, as well as their existing hydro-electric projects that account for some 88% of Norway’s total power production in 2023 with 1 769 hydropower plants.
There will never be enough global capacity to store CO2 based on current emissions investment plans. Other solutions are needed which may arrive through innovations on a grand scale or through a big reduction of fossil fuels. Both solutions could work, but they have low probabilities of success, and even if successful they will take much longer than anticipated to be implemented.
Norway is enjoying huge revenues from their sales of fossil fuels, and it is a noble decision to use these funds for more research into safe and cost-effective large-scale storage methods for CO2 capture and storage.
The European Commission has set a target of capturing and storing 50 million tons of CO2 annually by 2030 in the EU – increasing to around 200 million tons annually in 2040 and 250 million tons in 2050. Such increases mean that 30 to 50 new storage wells must be opened and operated with injection rates of some one million tons each year, according to SINTEF.
Recent estimates[1] for global carbon capture needs are said to be near to 2 billion tons each year, which is 40 times more than EU’s own targets – and that is not expected to be enough!
Norway has been at the forefront of geological CO2 storage since the mid-1980s, when researchers at SINTEF developed the idea of storing carbon dioxide in porous rocks. Statoil, (now called Equinor), started using this solution for CO2 storage in 1996 using water-filled sandstone layers above the Sleipner gas field. Now Equinor is injecting an annual average of some 1.5 million tons in the 2 projects.
SINTEF has led the research on CO2 storage enabling many Norwegian operators to secure a strong focus and expertise on carbon storage in a broader sense.
Photo: SINTEF
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00180-4#:~:text=To%20limit%20global%20warming%20to,billion%20tonnes%20above%202020%20levels.
