Northern Lights: Europe’s First Cross-Border CO₂ Hub

As CO₂ concentrations increase in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel consumption, the effect on the planet’s climate might turn irreversible, even if no more oil, coal, or gas is ever again consumed tomorrow. And of course, we are very far from it, with fossil fuels still providing the world most of its primary energy, even with quickly rising renewable energy production and an ongoing rebirth of the nuclear industry.

“To reach net-zero globally we’ll have to remove up to 10 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2050.”
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

This is why carbon capture projects are becoming so important. We already covered a few major ones, like the Mammoth Facility in Iceland (36,000 tons of CO₂ per year) or STRATOS in Texas (500,000 tons of CO₂ per year).
These facilities are a good start, but they alone are not enough. First, they often rely on the not-so-liquid or stable markets for carbon credits. And they also tend to operate for the benefit of only one company.
Another even larger project is now active, the Northern Lights Project. When fully ramped up, it will store up to 5,000,000 tons of CO₂ per year and will be the world’s first cross-border CO₂ transport and storage facility.
This hub was created from the collaboration between major European oil companies and will greatly contribute to reducing the net CO₂ emissions of the region.

Northern Light Project History

The Northern Light Project is the endpoint of an even larger carbon capture project, Longship. The plan is to organize the capture of carbon emissions at factories and power plants, load it in ships, and deliver this cargo to Øygarden in Norway. There, the CO₂ is processed and injected via a subsea pipe into permanent underground storage.
The entire project is managed by Gassnova, the Norwegian state enterprise for carbon capture and storage, established by the country in 2005.

Source: Gassnova