Back to search

GRØNNPLATTFORM-Grønn plattform

NCS C+ - The Norwegian Continental Shelf: A Driver for Climate Positive Norway

Alternative title: NCS C+ - Den norske kontinentalsokkelen: En driver for klimapositivt Norge

Awarded: NOK 36.7 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

328715

Project Period:

2022 - 2025

Funding received from:

Partner countries:

NCS C+ will thoroughly assess four key climate positive technologies that could be used in connection with permanent CO2 storage on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in the fight against climate change. For decades, the NCS helped to transform the Norwegian economy through oil and gas extraction. In the future, its role will shift to become a driver for a climate-positive Norway. By removing harmful CO2 emissions from industrial processes and the atmosphere and storing them in permanent CO2 storage deep underneath the sea bed, Norway has a generational opportunity to contribute to the fight against climate change and develop an entirely new industrial sector. There are many pathways to a greener shelf, but each currently has several assumptions and unknowns. The four pathways to be assessed in NCS C+ are 1) direct CO2 capture from air, 2) direct CO2 capture from seawater, 3) algae and other bio-enhanced removal of CO2 with production of heat or hydrogen, and 4) direct non-CO2 greenhouse gases removal from air. NCS C+ will thoroughly assess each pathway from a socio-economic and environmental perspective to ensure that no significant harm is done. If they are feasible at a relevant scale, these climate-positive solutions can deliver the much-needed negative emissions that are required to achieve the carbon-neutrality ambitions of Norway and Europe.

Massive Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) deployment is instrumental in all realistic future scenarios to reach the 1.5°C target, and for nearly all of them Carbon Dioxide Removial (CDR) pathways will be needed. NCS C+ targets the green transformation by developing and maturing promising technologies that remove CO2 or methane from the atmosphere thus generating so-called negative emissions. These technologies are referred as climate-positive technologies or, if they focus on CO2 removal, CDR. The NCS C+ project is the first initiative to develop a methodology and consistently benchmark different CDR technologies. The ambition of NCS C+ is to bring CDR deployment a step closer to deployment at unprecedented scale for a climate-positive transition. The goal of NCS C+ is to advance the development of four key climate-positive paths to achieve Norway's and Europe's climate-neutrality ambitions and, in doing so, leverage NCS assets to support safe and cost-efficient transport and storage of the CO2 removed. These four climate-positive paths are: Direct CO2 capture from air, Direct CO2 capture from seawater, Algae and other bio-enhanced removal of CO2 with production of heat or hydrogen, and Direct non-CO2 greenhouse gases removal from air. NCS C+ will assess the techno-economic performances of these concepts, as well as their environmental impact throughout their complete life cycle to ensure that no significant harm to the other green taxonomy principles derives from the proposed solutions and synergies. If feasible at a relevant scale, these climate-positive solution solutions can deliver the much-needed negative emissions that are required to achieve the carbon-neutrality ambitions of Norway and Europe.

Publications from Cristin

No publications found

Funding scheme:

GRØNNPLATTFORM-Grønn plattform

Funding Sources