Fortum Oslo Varme’s (FOV) waste management facility at Klemetsrud is among the most mature CCS project proposals in Europe. 

This was confirmed today by the EU Innovation Fund, which has chosen FOV-CCS as one of 70 applications (out of 311 who applied) for the next round, allocating up to 1 billion euros to new climate projects. 

The FOV-CCS project involves large investments, but the cost per tonne of CO2 emissions avoided is competitive. 

Over its planned operating time of (at least) 25 years, FOV will capture and deliver for permanent storage of approximately 10 million tonnes of CO2. 

Half will be biogenic CO2, and thus could result in net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. This project could therefore provide a very large climate benefit for the money it is asking for. We believe that the EU Commission will emphasize this in the next evaluation round. 

“This would be a great opportunity to prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere while also testing out the real-life potential for negative emissions in these facilities”, said Keith Whiriskey, Deputy Director at Bellona Europa.  

Unfortunately, Norway does not have its own scheme for financing the capture and storage of CO2 on a large scale beyond the Longship support program. This needs to be put in place quickly. 

The government’s strategy that CO2 pricing alone should stimulate sufficient investment in new climate projects is unlikely to succeed. 

A significant proportion of the state’s ever-increasing revenues from CO2 taxes and quota sales should be plowed back into investments in climate measures, including large CO2 management projects. 

Both the waste treatment industry and the process industry have plans ready to use ever better and cheaper climate solutions, but need predictable payment schemes to realize these. 

Without large, new climate projects, it will be almost impossible to reduce Norway’s emissions to zero.