UPDATED: As part of the fight against climate change, the energy company Ørsted will start construction of two so-called CO2 capture plants on Monday. This is stated in a press release on Monday morning.
The plants will help capture and store 430,000 tons of CO2 each year at the Asnæs power plant in Kalundborg and from the Avedøre power plant in Hvidovre. In comparison, 46.2 million tons were emitted from Denmark in 2021. This corresponds to almost one percent of that. The 430,000 tons also correspond to the annual emissions from 200,000 gasoline-powered cars, Ørsted writes in the announcement.
It is called Denmark's first full-scale project of its kind, and the hope is that it can help contribute to Danish climate goals in the future.
- We must launch many different green solutions to combat climate change, and this project is one of the solutions that will play an important role in the effort, says Ole Thomsen, Director of Ørsted's power plant business, in the announcement.
- We look forward to working with our partners, the municipalities and stakeholders to make this project a success and achieve our common climate goals.
Concito: CCS necessary to achieve climate goals
The capture project was awarded a 20-year contract by the Danish Energy Agency in May, thus receiving a share of a pool of 16 billion kroner. A week ago, the country's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the cement factory Aalborg Portland, started a similar project.
However, this was a pilot plant, the purpose of which is to test a new technology that can potentially eliminate a significant part of energy consumption through CO2 capture.
If you ask Torsten Hasforth, chief economist at the green think tank Concito, the technology is "inevitable" to achieve our climate goals.
- We have chosen to focus on reducing emissions from Aalborg Portland, among others, and with such a large cement plant, it is difficult to avoid CCS, he says.
The technology works specifically by washing the flue gas in a chemical mixture, where the CO2 is separated so that it can be transported away. In a sense, the climate-damaging gas is washed. From here it can be stored underground or used to make green fuels when combined with hydrogen made from renewable energy.
When it comes to the specific project, Concito sees better candidates, as these are plants that burn so-called biomass - straw and wood chips.
- CCS is expensive and the last thing to do after reducing energy consumption and finding alternative forms of energy. That's why we wanted it to be in places like Aalborg Portland, for example, because it's hard to see alternatives to cement, so it also makes sense to have the plants here tomorrow, he says.
The CO2 that Ørsted captures will be shipped to Norway, where it will be stored in a reservoir in the Norwegian part of the North Sea. In March, a pilot project took the same step in the Danish part of the sea.
Ørsted expects that the company's construction will be ready to reduce part of the emissions from 2026. On Monday, a "first sod-turning" event will be held at Avedøreværket. Here, Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities Lars Aagaard will turn the first sod together with Ørsted's CEO, Mads Nipper.
/ritzau/
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