"As the clock ticks on towards 2050, time is of the essence. We have 25 years to make CCS happen. Both our net-zero future and the health of our planet depend on it." - Bergur Løkke Rasmussen, CCS Europe Director

However laudable this political momentum behind CCS might be, we are still far, far away from the Commission’s own modelling presented in its Industrial Carbon Management Strategy (ICMS), of 280 million tonnes of CO2 being captured and stored annually on European territory by 2040. The fact of the matter is that fewer than one million tonnes of CO2 are being captured at present. In the 12 months since the Commission published its ICMS, the only final investment decision taken within the EU for a CCS project capable of capturing more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2 is the INEOS Greensand project in my native Denmark.

So now it is right that our focus must be on translating the political momentum into action. Reports, economic models and legal targets are very important. But unless and until we are sequestering CO2 at the required scale of hundreds of millions of tonnes, they risk being paper tigers.

To get to the kind of scale required we must address some incredibly important questions at a technical level. The first of these pertains to standards. To ramp up our carbon capture industry to continental scale, we need a set of common standards that ensure the minimum levels of purity permitted for CO2. Prospective CCS industry players need to know what pressure and temperatures are permissible for the transport and storage of carbon. They need to know what CO2 stream quality is expected.

The transportation of CO2 is another key issue. Carbon capture plants need to be able to transport the CO2 they have caught to a storage site in order to have any effect. But the CO2 transport infrastructure is lacking, and will remain so, absent the harmonized technical standards required for the transportation of CO2. We need to address any potential concerns about health, environment and equipment involved in transporting CO2.

Finally, and most importantly, is the business case. The development of a CCS value chain presents significant risks for investors due to the high upfront capital costs. With the current cost of carbon allowances in Europe’s emissions trading scheme currently going at around €80/tonne the cost of buying allowances is significantly below the cost of establishing CCS value chains. EU Member States need to use public funds to address this gap and de-risk private sector investment, ultimately accelerating deployment.

These three priorities will be driving our work as we continue to make the case for CCS. As the clock ticks on towards 2050, time is of the essence. We have 25 years to make CCS happen. Both our net-zero future and the health of our planet depend on it.