Page 40: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2023)

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE ©Equinor

NORTHERN LIGHTS:

TRAILBLAZING THE PATH TO

NET ZERO EMISSIONS

In the global quest for achieving net zero emissions and slowing down global warming, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has merged as an important solution.

Among the notable projects being developed in the ? eld is the

Northern Lights offshore carbon capture and storage project in

Norway, a country with long experience with offshore CO2 storage.

By Bartolomej Tomic he transition to a sustainable energy future requires in- In a speech in October 2022, Kadri Simson, European novative solutions that go beyond simply halting fossil Commissioner for Energy, said, “I believe that CCUS has

Tfuel projects. incredible potential in our race to reach climate neutrality.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has emerged as a criti- And without CCS and CCU, it will be practically impos- cal technology to address emissions from hard-to-abate in- sible to limit the global warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius dustries. objective.” “CCUS is a necessary bridge between the reality of today’s She said that the Commission modeling showed that the EU energy system and the increasingly urgent need to reduce will need to capture and utilize or store between 300 and 640 emissions. Not only can it avoid locking in emissions from million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050 to meet its existing power and industrial facilities, it also provides a criti- climate goals.

cal foundation for carbon removal or negative emissions,” Dr. There’s been a notable recent surge in offshore carbon cap-

Fatih Birol, Executive Director at the International Energy ture and storage news, with offshore storage licenses recently

Agency, said recently. either granted or pending in the U.K. and Norway, a giant off- 40 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • August 2023

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