The Norwegian facility Northern Lights is “98 percent” complete and the terminal in Øygarden will start receiving carbon dioxide in the autumn to pump it under the North Sea using so-called CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology. This is reported by the Norwegian technology magazine Teknisk Ukeblad.
The minister: “A day of joy”
How it will turn out with the planned expansion, which included Swedish participation, remains unclear, the newspaper writes.
As Dagens PS reported in the summer of 2021, the then minister of economic affairs proclaimed Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson (S) it to “a day of joy” when he told a press conference with the company Cementa (now Heidelberg Materials) that Sweden would be part of the plans by shipping carbon dioxide from Gotland to Norway.
“It is a real day of joy when we hear that Heidelberg cement is going ahead with capturing carbon dioxide in Slite. Cement is one of the most important components for, among other things, construction and infrastructure,” said Minister of Economy Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson at the time, according to Dagens industri.
Sweden has also recently signed a bilateral memorandum of understanding with Norway on the project, as have Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. But instead of capturing carbon dioxide, Heidelberg Materials has been captured by Swedish environmental bureaucracy, where a process for a permit for the company’s lime mining has dragged on due to suspected impact on the groundwater on Gotland.
Working further with the project on Gotland
The plan to connect Gotland and Sweden to the Norwegian CCS project still exists, however, and is in a “design and establishment phase” according to Heidelberg Materials. But how quickly it can become a reality is unclear, as it depends, among other things, on large investments from the government in energy infrastructure for Gotland.
For the time being, the Norwegians are working on their CSS project. The expansion of it is dependent on when new agreements come into place.
“We cannot give an exact date for such a decision, but we are optimistic about the commercial potential of carbon capture and storage as a new industry for Norway,” says Børre Jacobsen, CEO of Northern Lights to Teknisk Ukeblad.
Read also: Cementa invests in CCS: Joy or happiness calculation? (Today’s PS)
Read also: CCS on Gotland and the oil giants in the “longship project” (Dagens PS)
