PRESS RELEASE: Has CCS Stalled?

Brussels, 5 February 2025 -- 

With only one final investment decision for a major carbon capture project taken within the EU in the past 12 months, supporters of the technology’s deployment say that progress is well below what is needed to achieve industrial decarbonisation.

Chris Davies, director of advocacy group CCS Europe, said: “We need a major project to be announced every week, not every year.

“‘There are hundreds of CCS projects being developed, and some pilot schemes are underway, but the vast majority are not crossing the line to get built.”

“Yet hard-to-abate industry sectors such as aluminium, lime, cement, steel and chemicals, need the technology if they are to eliminate their emissions.”

Exactly one year ago, 6 February 2024, the European Commission published its Communication on Industrial Carbon Management. It suggested the need for the EU to capture 280 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2040 if net-zero targets are to be achieved.

Fewer than one million tonnes of CO2 are being captured at present.

Construction of seven CCS projects, in Denmark and the Netherlands, commenced in 2023, but in the last 12 months the only FID taken within the EU for the capture of more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2 is the INEOS Greensand project in Denmark.

Italy’s Ravenna project, supported by ENI and Snam, intends to capture and store four million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030 but is starting with a modest 25,000 tonnes.

Elsewhere in Europe final investment decisions have been taken for a CCS-equipped gas power station at Teesside in the UK, and for the Oslo waste-to-energy plant in Norway.

The Net Zero Industry Act, which became law last year, requires 50 million tonnes of annual CO2 storage capacity to be made available by 2030.

Europe’s first pipeline intended for the transport and permanent storage of CO2 is currently being laid by the Porthos project in Rotterdam.

 

CCS Europe is looking forward to measures to support CCS being announced in the Clean Industrial Deal, but Davies says that the political leadership needed from the Commission is still missing.

He said: “Where CCS is happening, in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy and Greece, it is because national governments are providing the support to make it happen.

“But the majority of Member States still have no strategy for achieving industrial decarbonisation.

“We need the Commission to be outspoken and to champion CCS across Europe, but at present we still don’t even know which Commissioner is taking the lead.”

 

Resource download