Norway’s Hedged Bet on Europe’s Energy Future: A Garbage Disposal for Emissions

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By Stanley Reed, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: On the edge of a fjord on Norway’s rocky west coast is a massive, almost sculptural structure that represents a multibillion-dollar bet on the economic future of energy in Northern Europe. The tanks at Oygarden, near the port city of Bergen, hold thousands of tons of liquid carbon dioxide extracted from the exhaust produced by a cement plant in southern Norway. The carbon dioxide...will soon be piped about 70 miles offshore and down an 8,500-foot well in the North Sea, where it will be locked away in the spongy rock, the project’s developers say. Norway has long been Europe’s leading producer of oil and natural gas. Now, with an eye to a future when earnings from those resources may decline, Oslo wants to parlay the skills of the petroleum industry and its favorable geology into a kind of garbage disposal service for emissions from heavy industry. ...In a sign of the increasing acceptance of carbon capture, 20 financial institutions agreed to lend about 8 billion pounds in debt for two carbon capture projects in northeast England, including a natural-gas-fired power station called Net Zero Teesside Power.... 

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