My latest report on CCS is now also available in English. It was commissioned by Greenpeace Germany.
I would like to emphasize two aspects in particular:
- The report provides a detailed and, in my opinion, clear and jargon-free presentation of the most important active CCS projects to date (Sleipner, Snøhvit, Gorgon et al.). They demonstrate how difficult, unplannable and individual each CCS project is. Even under the most favorable conditions (capture of CO2 in a neighboring natural gas field) and executed by the most capable actors such as Equinor or Shell, CCS projects remain an enormous challenge. Complete failure is not uncommon.
- The second point is closely related: CCS projects are not scalable and the entire CO2 chain is prone to technical faults, especially CO2 capture with amine scrubbing. For example, to dispose of 10 percent of fossil CO2 emissions (oil, gas, coal) with CCS, 3300 Sleipner projects or 570 Northern Lights (Phase II) projects would be necessary. This is simply not feasible by 2050 and is already failing, for example, due to the bottleneck of very specialized exploration ships and geological expertise. In order to realize a larger number of CCS projects, the quality standards would have to be lowered, which in turn increases the susceptibility to failure.
Executive summary
A. Unexpected comeback of the CCS approach
1. CCS — an acronym that has recently been embraced by the industry — stands for Carbon Capture and Storage: CO2 is captured from emitters and then disposed of in underground storage facilities.
Climate policy in Germany is also planning to make CCS a central component, which will involve CO2 pipelines and tankers to transport the greenhouse gas out of the country, mainly to Norway.
2. This is an unexpected comeback for a hitherto largely unsuccessful technology. Having failed countless times in the past, CCS was not supposed to be more than a stopgap in climate policy, left to deal with residual emissions from sectors with no obvious alternatives. CCS was then finally sidelined by the huge drop in the price of solar and wind energy, as well as many other climate-friendly solutions.
3. But for some industries, notably the oil and gas industry, CCS is now set to become a generously subsidised global lifeline. And that’s not all: CCS is set to become a multi-billion-dollar business model over the next few years. Oil and gas companies will be
able to make money not only from the sale of oil and gas, but also from the disposal of the resulting emissions.
B. A critical analysis of existing CCS projects
4. Can CCS deliver on these expectations? Little is known about the technical and geological background, and the number of realised CCS projects is surprisingly small. There are only a handful of major plants worldwide, and only two in Europe: Sleipner and Snøhvit. Both are considered best-practice examples of CCS working well. But is this assessment correct?
5. An in-depth analysis of these projects shows that CO2 storage is associated with considerable risks, geological uncertainties, delays and unexpected project cancellations. Costs remain high and lengthy disruptions are commonplace. There is no progress without large government subsidies.
5.1 In the much-cited Sleipner CCS flagship project (Norway) in the southern North Sea, the injected CO2 migrated to the sea surface much faster than expected and accumulated in a layer that the carefully developed geological models did not predict should exist (‘9th layer’). Millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (nobody knows exactly how much) are now migrating in several directions below the surface, looking for a way up. Fortunately, the injection of CO2 will stop in a few years, as the neighbouring gas field (the original source of CO2) is about to run dry.
5.2 Contrary to all predictions, the first attempt at disposal at the Snøhvit integrated CCS project (Norway) in the Barents Sea had to be cancelled because the pressure quickly rose to critical levels. So far, only the third attempt appears to be working.
5.3 In a similar geological situation, the CCS project in In Salah (Algeria) failed completely. For far too long, the project operators ignored the unexpectedly rapid increase in pressure in the CO2 disposal site. The ground above the storage site lifted by several centimetres. Only at the last moment was the CO2 injection stopped and the project cancelled.
5.4 Even after eight years, the huge integrated CCS project Gorgon (Australia) is still unable to dispose of the CO2. In fact, the amount of carbon dioxide disposed of is actually decreasing as salt water and sand keep stopping the injection. If the project is not to fail completely, the oil and gas company Chevron will have to carry out relief and stabilisation wells.
But the real test for all CCS projects is yet to come. Will the CO2 remain safely in the ground for 100 or 1,000 years?
6. So far, virtually all of the major CCS projects that aim to permanently dump carbon dioxide have only been used to reduce the unusually high CO2 content of certain profitable natural gas reservoirs (Sleipner, Snøhvit, Gorgon, In Salah).
But there are also large low-CO2 natural gas reservoirs. In other words, CCS only solves problems that could have been avoided in the first place. The benefits for climate protection are close to zero.
C. CCS: costly, unrealistic and, above all, too risky in terms of climate policy
7. CCS remains expensive. Without government support, no project could survive the early planning stages. If we go down the CCS route, instead of preventing climate change emissions in the first place, society will have to finance the disposal of those emissions on a permanent basis.
Comparisons with cost developments in the solar and wind industries are inappropriate. There has been no reduction in the cost of CCS projects in recent decades. In particular, CO2 disposal cannot be standardised. Each project requires a costly analysis of the individual geology of the deposit and the development of a tailor-made solution.
Conversely, an increase in CCS activity is more likely to result in higher prices, given the limited number of specialist companies capable of undertaking these tasks and the lack of significant potential for expansion within a decade. As in other sectors, the gap between costs and prices is likely to persist.
8. The expansion of CCS in Europe, the US and Asia creates new, risky dependencies for climate protection, as this technology path allows industry to continue burning large amounts of coal, gas or oil.
It is clear that the CCS chain from industrial plant to CO2 storage site will be subject to frequent disruptions. In addition to the disposal sites, the capture facilities, which use large amounts of chemicals that are harmful to human health, are considered particularly vulnerable. In addition, the construction of many kilometres of CO2 pipelines will face considerable opposition, as demonstrated by the Porthos project in the industrial region of Rotterdam and the failed pipeline projects in the US.
Given the significant volumes of CO2 that need to be transported and disposed of on a daily basis, buffer storage facilities can quickly reach capacity in the event of a disruption. In such cases, emitters are forced to vent the CO₂ into the atmosphere or cease operations.
9. Unrealistic dimensions: To store just 10 per cent of the fossil CO₂ emitted globally in 2022, 3,300 functioning Sleipner projects or 670 Northern Lights projects (Phase II) would have to be implemented worldwide.
It is not possible to achieve this scale in the near future, neither technically nor economically. Moreover, the CCS projects planned to date, regardless of their chances of being realised, do not even come close to the volumes that are relevant for climate policy.
Over-optimism about CCS will therefore lead to a climate policy trap. The development of CCS infrastructure, CO2 disposal sites and capture facilities will be so slow and fragile that the fossil economy will not be able to reduce its emissions and will be far too slow to invest in low-emission production methods and products.
10. Environmental risks: The German government’s recent assessment report on CCS lists numerous environmental risks posed by CCS for which no safe solution is in sight, ranging from hazardous chemicals used in capture facilities to potential leaks in CO2 pipelines. Carbon dioxide can also cause damage to the marine environment. Biodiversity in affected areas is declining rapidly.
Another factor is that the risk of earthquakes increases when very large amounts of CO2 are injected – a phenomenon that has been occurring regularly in the US for years when water is injected into reservoirs. The quakes can cause cracks in the cap rock of the CO2 reservoirs, opening the way to the surface. It is not at all clear how the operators of CO2 repositories will be able to deal with such problems.
Major earthquakes can also put CO2 disposal sites at risk. Since 1900, there have been 79 earthquakes in Norway with magnitudes between 4.0 and 6.1, some of which have occurred in the immediate vicinity of existing or planned CO2 storage sites. Last year alone, four major earthquakes occurred off the Norwegian coast.
11. Conclusion: There is no place for CCS in today’s energy world. Solar and wind power, electromobility and batteries, green hydrogen and other electrolytically produced raw materials now offer more attractive alternatives for almost all industries.
The CCS route is too expensive, too slow and technologically immature. Above all, it is too risky. Without being able to mitigate it in terms of climate policy, it wants to extend the fossil path far into the future.
This reversal of roles is also evident in the few CCS flagship projects that have gone into operation: Sleipner (Norway), Snøhvit (Norway) and Gorgon (Australia).
In all three cases, the commercially attractive resource is natural gas with an unusually high CO2 content. Until now, this carbon dioxide has simply been released into the atmosphere, where it damages the climate. In Norway alone, 124 oil and gas fields release 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year.[Q20 — see list of sources in appendix].
Now companies are being celebrated and subsidised for capturing the greenhouse gas on site and dumping it in CO2 disposal sites. In other words, they are solving problems of their own making by opting for particularly climate-damaging gas deposits. The climate benefit is close to zero, as only the CO2 that was previously extracted from the ground is disposed of. The (cleaned) natural gas is then sold and produces just as many emissions as before.
The fossil fuel industry is in unanimous agreement that CCS has no future without massive state subsidies. In contrast to photovoltaics, wind power and batteries, CCS has remained expensive in recent decades.
As a result, the industry’s message to the media is contradictory: on the one hand, CCS is presented as an attractive, low-risk climate solution that is technically feasible. On the other hand, government should bear most of the costs and provide guarantees because the technical challenges and economic risks are said to be incalculable.
