Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) enables both short-term and long-term emissions reductions. It can act as an interim solution for industries like chemicals, iron production, and steel production now, while clean hydrogen supply and infrastructure scale up to meet requirements in the 2030s. It also provides a more permanent solution for industries like cement that cannot fully adopt hydrogen due to unavoidable emissions arising from production processes.

Current European Picture

The combination of its industrial base, far-reaching climate targets, and tightening regulations means Europe has an urgent need to decarbonize. But to date, Europe’s progress has lagged other regions, including the US, Australia, and Japan.

This is starting to change. Twenty European countries have either built or plan to build carbon-capture facilities that will be operational by 2030, dramatically increasing capacity from today’s annual 1.8 megatons of CO2 captured to up to 102 megatons by that date, as shown in Figure 1. Europe would shift from representing under 5% of global carbon-capture capacity to 28%.

These figures may be on the conservative side, as they are based on announced projects already at the advanced development stages. Further capacity increases are likely due to potential policies from the EU and national governments, driven by pressure to meet climate targets. For example, Germany is expected to introduce a comprehensive carbon management strategy in the coming months that could lead to a growth in local projects. Some experts see an even stronger uptake of carbon-capture capacity: GlobalData forecasts almost 140 megatons of CO2 per annum, and Rystad Energy predicts more than 200 megatons.

Eighty percent of this capacity will be concentrated in five Northern European countries, led by the UK (51 megatons of CO2), the Netherlands (13 megatons), Norway (10 megatons), France (6 megatons), and Germany (4 megatons).

These countries plan to use carbon capture in the production of blue hydrogen and/or ammonia, especially the UK and Norway. Further applications vary significantly between countries, based on expected needs:

• UK — power and heat generation, especially for gas and biomass power plants

• Norway — waste to energy plants and cement production

• The Netherlands — coal power generation

• France — iron and steel production

• Germany — cement production

[For more from the authors on this topic, see: “Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage: Bridging the Gap.”]