Ten years ago, on this day, September 20, 2013, the Norwegian government pulled the plug on the Mongstad carbon capture and storage project.
Norway’s government on Friday terminated a full-scale project to capture carbon dioxide at the Mongstad refinery on the country’s western coast, citing high risks connected to the facility. It will be replaced with a carbon capture and storage (CCS) program that is designed to “realize” other full-scale CCS projects in the country.
https://www.powermag.com/42579/
and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24233443
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly397ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the wheels were falling off the CCS bandwagon. The EU project NER300 was going nowhere. The British first competition head stopped. There were cost overruns at Southern Company. And the Norwegians just pull the plug.
What I think we can learn from this is that technosalvationism is really expensive and sometimes it gets so expensive that it can’t be sustained.
What happened next
Everyone within a few years agreed to start talking about CCS as the next big thing and along has come hydrogen to assist in that. The game is the game is the game is the game
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.