2023-11-02 13:12:47
It is one of the most ambitious projects in the world in terms of CO2 storage and France wants to encourage its manufacturers to participate. Accompanied by a business delegation, the Minister of Industry, Roland Lescure, traveled to Norway on October 30 and 31 to visit the Northern Lights facilities, which are being built by Equinor , the national oil company, Shell and TotalEnergies. Commissioning is planned for 2024.
A CO2 reservoir 2,500 meters below the seabed
The project plans to store up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year in a saline aquifer along the Norwegian coast, 2,500 meters below the bottom of the North Sea, in a first phase, then 5 million tonnes per year from 2026.
All of the work is estimated at 2.3 billion euros, including 1.3 billion provided by the Norwegian state. The country aims to become the world number one in storage, by highlighting the geological characteristics of its continental shelf. In the North Sea alone, 80 billion tonnes could thus be sequestered. For its part, the European Union is subsidizing around ten carbon capture projects, several of which are likely to result in Northern Lights.
The technology of last resort
The goal is to move quickly, taking into account the decarbonization objectives, despite the opposition of environmentalists, for whom the capture and storage of CO2 (“CCS”, according to the English acronym) does not aim, ultimately, only to enable the production of more carbon. But these arguments are swept aside by the government. “Storage will only be used when there are no other solutions. This is the technology of last resort », explains an advisor to Roland Lescure.
To produce traditional cement, for example, limestone must be fired, which releases CO2, regardless of the energy used. CCS is therefore the only way to decarbonize cement plants.
In total, this reservoir would absorb 10% of the emissions from the 50 highest emitting sites. According to the government, sequestration needs would represent between 4 and 8 million tonnes per year by 2030 and between 15 and 20 million by 2050. Manufacturers will be helped and the first subsidy contracts should be implemented. next year, because these technologies are expensive.
An agreement between France and Norway will soon be signed
France is therefore working to sign a bilateral agreement with Norway. “The State is not intended to reserve capacities on behalf of companies, but to provide a framework for cooperation,” explains Roland Lescure’s entourage.
This should be a matter of months, even if certain regulatory obstacles have yet to be removed, particularly on the export of CO2. In the meantime, a Franco-Norwegian forum will be held in January, with meetings between French industrialists and Norwegian officials on the agenda.
The CO2 is liquefied and transported by ship
Because for Northern Lights, the first customers are already waiting and the list could quickly grow. On the Norwegian side, a Brevik cement plant and the Oslo waste incineration plant will send their CO2 there, or 800,000 tonnes per year. It will first be brought to 26 degrees to be liquefied and transported by boat, under a pressure of 15 bars. Arriving at Øygarden, it will then be injected into a pipeline of around a hundred kilometers before being permanently stored in the saline aquifer.
In 2025, it will be the turn of Yara, a Norwegian fertilizer manufacturer, to also ship 800,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from its factory in the Netherlands.
Several projects in France
According to the government, the first projects should see the light of day in 2028 in three large basins, in Dunkirk, Le Havre and Fos-sur-Mer, where manufacturers have already signed agreements between them pooling equipment, such as pipes to evacuate the CO2.
One of the most advanced is that carried out in Pas-de-Calais by Eqiom, a cement manufacturer, and Lhoist, a lime manufacturer. They plan to share an 80 kilometer pipeline which would transport 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 (then 4 million tonnes in a second phase, including for example the steelmaker ArcelorMittal) to Dunkirk. This is the D’Artagnan project, supported by Air Liquide and the Dunkirk LNG terminal. A gas pipeline would then transport the CO2 to Norway.
A site under study in the Paris Basin
“CO2 capture and storage represents a tremendous growth driver for our oil and gas industry,” explains an advisor to the Minister of Industry, citing some French flagships, such as TotalEnergies, Technip, CGG and Schlumberger, all of whom are working on the subject.
France could also store CO2 in its basement. The government therefore asked the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research to study a site in the south-east of the Paris Basin, which previously hosted a small oil deposit.
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The issue of social acceptability
« The health and environmental risks in the event of a leak are among the main reasons for the opposition encountered at local level for the establishment of a CO2 geological storage site. estimates Ademe in a note published in 2020. In the Netherlands, for example, a carbon sequestration project in a former gas reservoir had to be abandoned. Hence the interest in sites located far from the coast. The storage capacity in the North Sea is thus estimated at 80 billion tonnes of CO2.
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