Germany’s Federal Cabinet has given the go-ahead to carbon capture and storage (CCS), focusing primarily on hard-to-abate sectors.
The Cabinet has adopted key principles for a Carbon Management Strategy – which will now be finalised – and a draft act on the revision of the Carbon Storage Act.
The intention is to make it possible for Germany to use CCS/CCU and transport CO2 via pipeline and store it offshore, although not in protected marine areas.
Robert Habeck, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, said the decision was important to realise climate targets and key building block for industrial competitiveness, as Germany aims for climate neutrality by 2045.
He said, “This policy will bring us in line with our European neighbours like Norway and many other countries, and we, as the largest industrialised country in Europe, will live up to the responsibility for the way we handle greenhouse gas emissions.”
The draft legislation will now be forwarded to the Bundestag and the Bundesrat and discussed in the parliamentary procedure.
In order to avoid harmful GHG emissions from electricity generation, the Federal Government is banking on the accelerated expansion of renewable energy and on the capacity mechanism described in the Power Plant Strategy and, in advance of that, the new-build of gas-fired power stations which will be switched to hydrogen.
For power generation facilities using gaseous fuels or biomass, the application of CCS/CCU will continue to be ‘legally possible’ with a view to a technology-neutral transition to a climate-neutral electricity system.
The phase-out of coal will continue as planned, though emissions from coal-based energy generation facilities (i.e. power stations and combined heat and power plants) will not be granted access to CO2 pipelines and CO2 storage.
Permanent storage of CO2 in the geological underground on German (onshore) territory will still not be permitted.
Germany’s transformation to a climate-neutral society will take enormous effort, investment, and behavioural change in politics, business, research, and among the general public, according to a McKinsey report.
Depending on how fast renewable energies grow, temporary technological solutions might be needed to bridge those CO2 reductions, as well as in the long term to fully decarbonise industrial processes where decarbonisation is a real challenge (for example, cement). Current calculations assume that up to 60 Mt CO2 a year will be required (with subsequent transport to offshore storage or use in synthetic fuels or other products).
“The next 10 years will be critical: the technological approaches to decarbonisation that have already been identified need to be rapidly implemented in every industry. Other innovations in technologies, processes, and materials must be developed and scaled to deliver on decarbonisation,” it states.
source: gasworld.com