Germany should restrict CCS to unavoidable CO2 emissions – govt advisors

Germany’s reform plans to allow the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies should restrict their use to emissions that are impossible to avoid with today’s technologies, said the German Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU). The government advisors criticised the coalition government’s draft legislation for allowing the wide use of CCS, only restricting it in regards to coal plants. Parliament currently negotiates the reform of Germany’s carbon storage law.

The main goal should still be to avoid emissions in the first place, and current plans could lessen the pressure to decarbonise energy and industry, the SRU said. It criticised the current debate for putting the emphasis on the potential of CCS technologies, while risks and limits “tend to be underestimated.”

“CCS is associated with negative ecological consequences and risks for people and the environment that are difficult to assess,” the researchers from a range of disciplines said. These include damage to the environment, high energy requirements, competition for land onshore and offshore as well as high costs for the construction, long-term maintenance and monitoring of the infrastructure, which would likely have to be financed mostly through public funds.

Germany aims to reach climate neutrality by 2045, and CCS is supposed to help offset emissions in industries, where complete avoidance of CO2 is technically unfeasible or extremely expensive. Many of the technologies have not yet been proven at scale.

Germany’s overarching Carbon Management Strategy, currently developed by the government, says that CCS should be used especially for unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions – for example from cement production – as well as for those “hard to abate.” SRU criticised the law itself for doing little to restrict its use, and that it fails to clearly define “avoidable emissions.” Lack of clarity regarding state funding means that certain companies could hesitate to invest in climate-friendly processes, it said.

Tagesspiegel Background reported that Germany is going ahead with the necessary regulatory changes to export CO2 for storage abroad in countries like Norway or Denmark. The draft laws are scheduled for cabinet adoption later this year.