Six European states have called for a better regulatory framework around cross-border CO2 transport to encourage the development of the Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) market.
CCUS is likely to play an important role in helping European countries hit their goal of achieving net zero by 2050, particularly for reducing CO2 emissions in hard-to-abate sectors and for generating negative emissions. But at the Europe-wide level the regulatory framework and the market for CCUS are in the early stages.
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said in a joint statement, issued at the 4th Industrial Carbon Management Forum in France, that to create a common CCUS market, regulatory and economic barriers need to be addressed.
Meeting these goals would need the establishment of a carbon dioxide transport regulatory package to remove uncertainties and incentivise the building of cross-border CO2 infrastructure.
The statement said that while capture plants and storage facilities are under development in many EU member states, there is a need to coordinate the cross-border CO2 transport infrastructure.
"If such a regulatory framework is not established on time, the risk of a bottleneck in the development of the full CC(U)S value chain and a common European market will increase. Therefore, it is necessary to address the regulatory framework for cross-border CO2 transport early in the new European Commission’s mandate,” it warned.
The statement said the European Commission should present a CO2 transport regulatory package no later than 2025 to support a rapid development of CCUS in Europe. But it also said the market should not be over-regulated, and argued: “it is important to give market actors the necessary flexibility to realise CO2 transport infrastructure along the value chain.”
The European Commission’s industrial carbon management strategy notes that the CO2 transport infrastructure is necessary to establish a fully-fledged CO2 market in Europe. “Where captured CO2 is not used directly at the place of capture, it will need to be transported for use in industrial processes (for example for construction products, synthetic fuels, plastics or other chemicals) or permanent storage” it notes. CO2 can be transported by pipeline, ship, rail and truck.
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