SS CCS

 

 

 

The Baltic Carbon Forum 2015 took place in Warzaw, Poland 29-30th October 2015 hosted by the Polish Ministry of Economy. It was organised by the BASREC Carbon Capture and Storage Network (BASRECCS) with financial support from the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Global CCS Institute. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) experts from Nordic and Baltic countries took part. Presentations covered a wider range of topics, including carbon capture pilots, storage potentials in geological formations, legal issues and public acceptance of CCS. Nordic Energy Research was represented by Svend Søyland who provided an overview of CCS activities in the Nordic.

The presentation on legal issues related to CCS argued that the London Convention have an annex that could accomodate storage of CO2 in subsea geological formations but the ratification process was rather slow. Countries around the North Sea and Kattegat are not parties to the London Convention and therefore prevented from initiating storage until ratification is sufficient. It was pointed out that countries around the Baltic sea was not signatories and could therefore become the first to start up storage of CO2.

Public acceptance for CCS was also discussed drawing on experiences from Poland, United Kingdom, The Netherlands and USA. One takeaway lesson was that a proactive approach with extensive stakeholder dialogues was essential. Trying to remediate a growing public skepticism after a project has been decided is very challenging. Best practices in public outreach and public opinion polls were presented.

The conference ended with an open discussion with some focus on storage safety issues in comparison with natural gas. The moderator summarized the Network’s achievements thus far: – Established a network of CCS Experts with members from all BASREC countries except Iceland – Active Task Force work prerparing Seed Funding Application. A tangible outcome of the Warsaw conference is the creation of a new and combined initiative, under the preliminarily heading of “Knowledge Sharing Program”. A second Baltic Carbon Forum will be convened in 2016.