NORTH SEA, Denmark — First appearing as a dot on the horizon, the isolated Nini oil field on Europe’s rugged North Sea slowly comes into view from a helicopter.
Used to extract fossil fuels, the deposit is now enjoying a second life as a way to permanently store planet-warming carbon dioxide beneath the seabed.
In a process that almost reverses oil extraction, chemical giant INEOS plans to inject liquefied CO2 deep into depleted oil reservoirs, 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) below the seabed.
The Associated Press made a rare visit to the Siri platform near the unmanned Nini field, the latest stage of INEOS’ carbon capture and storage efforts, dubbed Greensand Future.
When the project begins commercial operations next year, Greensand is expected to become the first fully operational offshore CO2 storage site in the European Union.
Environmentalists say carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS, has a role to play in tackling climate change, but should not be used as an excuse by industries to avoid reducing their emissions.
Mads Gade, chief executive of INEOS Energy Europe, said the company would initially start storing 400,000 tonnes (363,000 metric tonnes) of CO2 per year, rising to up to 8 million tonnes (7.3 million metric tonnes) per year by 2030.
“Denmark has the potential to store more than several hundred years of our own emissions,” says Gade. “We are able to create an industry where we can help Europe store a lot of the CO2 here. »
Greensand has agreements with Danish biogas plants to bury their captured carbon emissions in depleted reservoirs at the Nini field.
A “CO2 terminal” to temporarily store liquefied gas is under construction in the port of Esbjerg, on the west coast of the Danish peninsula of Jutland.
A specially designed carrier ship, named “Carbon Destroyer 1”, is under construction in the Netherlands.
Proponents of carbon capture technology say it is a climate solution because it can remove greenhouse gases that are the main driver of climate change and bury them deep underground.
They note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s largest body of climate scientists, has said technology is a tool in the fight against global warming.
The EU has proposed developing at least 250 million tonnes (227 million metric tonnes) of CO2 storage per year by 2040, as part of plans to achieve “net zero emissions” by 2050.
Gade says carbon capture and storage is one of the best ways to reduce emissions.
“We do not want to deindustrialize Europe,” he said. “We would rather like to have some instruments to decarbonize.”
Experts from the Danish Geological Survey say that the Greensand sandstone rock is well suited to storing liquefied CO2. Nearly a third of the rock volume is made up of tiny cavities, said Niels Schovsbo, a senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.
“We found that there is no reaction between the reservoir and the injected CO2. And we found that the sealing rock above has sufficient capacity to retain the induced pressure when we store CO2 underground,” Schövsbo added.
“These two methods make it a perfect site for on-site storage. »
But while there are many carbon capture facilities around the world, the technology is far from global in scale, sometimes uses fossil energy in its operations and captures only a tiny fraction of global emissions.
The Greensand project aims to bury up to 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) of CO2 per year by 2030. The International Energy Agency says nearly 38 billion tons (34.5 billion metric tons) of CO2 were emitted globally last year.
Environmental campaigners say CCS has been used as an excuse by industries to delay reducing emissions.
“We could have CCS in the very few sectors where emissions are really difficult, if not impossible, to reduce,” said Helene Hagel, head of climate and environmental policy at Greenpeace Denmark.
“But when almost every sector of society says we should just capture emissions and store them instead of reducing them, that’s the problem.”
As the chemical giant ramps up its carbon storage efforts, it also hopes to begin development of another previously untapped North Sea oil field.
“The footprint we get from importing energy relative to national or regional oil and gas production is much more important for the transition than importing with a higher footprint,” Gade said, defending the company’s plans.
“We see the usefulness of doing this for a while, time to create a transition for Europe. »
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