Land-use conflicts to sharply limit German North Sea's CO2 storage potential – report

The German North Sea’s actual capacity for long-term storage of carbon dioxide is much smaller than its theoretical potential, given land use priorities and legal and environmental constraints, according to findings from a report from the Öko-Institut on behalf of the German Environment Agency (UBA). Only a small proportion of the potential needed for carbon capture and storage (CCS) will actually be usable, as many areas are already set aside for nature conservation, wind energy or military purposes, said the Öko-Institut.

CCS projects capture carbon dioxide emissions at the point of release (directly from the stack of a coal power plant for example), transport it to a storage location and store it safely over long time periods, usually deep underground. The German government has baked CCS into its plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2045, calling the technology “indispensable”. 

To date, deployment of CCS is in its infancy and is prohibitively expensive, with only a handful of projects operational across the globe.

Energy and climate researchers also say CCS will be necessary to a certain extent to reach climate targets. However, critics have argued for years that CCS could be used to extend the lifetime of the fossil fuel industry, thus hurting environmental goals rather than helping protect them.

The report authors argue that CCS should be considered a last resort technology for residual emissions. “It should be clear that, above all, the emissions stored underground are those which we cannot avoid by other means,” Florian Krob, a researcher at the Öko-Institut said in a press release.

The report also highlighted that safe use of CCS with enduring public acceptance “requires comprehensive safety and risk management, robust monitoring, and the early and transparent involvement of the public,” as well as “greater consideration of ecological and socio-economic factors when identifying environmentally sound CO2 storage sites.”