The priorities of the European Green Deal, one of the flagships of the von der Leyen Commission, notoriously include reducing carbon emissions by 2030 and eliminating them by mid-century. To achieve these goals, the carbon collected needs to be put somewhere. However, currently available deposits in Europe are far from equal distribution.
As we know, one of the ways the EU aims to achieve its ambitious climate targets is by reducing (and phasing out) emissions of CO2, one of the main greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. It is probably less known to non-specialists that one of the tools used to achieve these results is represented by so-called carbon capture and storage systems, often denoted by the abbreviation Ccs (from the English word carbon capture and storage). In practice, it means isolating and capturing carbon dioxide molecules from the atmosphere (or preventing them from reaching the atmosphere directly): In this way, it is possible to keep polluting economic activities active, because in fact pollution is artificially eliminated in the same way.
It is now clear that carbon capture technologies are extremely expensive. But there is another dimension that already makes these problematic, at least in Europe. According to the newspaper politicalThe other important point of CCS systems relates to the storage issue: Where does all the captured carbon go? Of course, certain areas are needed to store it, and the most common practice is to use depleted gas or oil deposits for this purpose.
The problem is that these natural dumps, so to speak, are largely concentrated in Northern Europe, particularly in the North Sea. And this limited geographic area is also home to nearly all of the artificial storage projects expected to be completed by the end of the decade, many of which were announced last year.
In contrast, there are almost no active projects in the southern and central-eastern European regions. In fact, according to the head of the energy department of the Juul-Jørgensen Commission, politicalThere are a few that may soon receive EU funding, but it is not yet clear when they will actually be operational. If not adequately addressed, this fact could lead to further economic gaps between the countries in the north of the continent and those in the south; this could lead to a reduction in the industrial competitiveness of the latter compared to the former, given the higher costs. transport of carbon from capture areas to storage areas.
As part of its Green Deal, the Commission is preparing plans to increase Twenty-Seven’s storage capacities (reaching 50 million tonnes by 2030) and strengthen infrastructure networks to facilitate carbon transport. Brussels is therefore encouraging companies and individual governments not only to invest in CCS technologies, but also to identify areas to store carbon to make its distribution more equitable on the continent.
But the EU’s aim is to eliminate by 2034 the special permits (the English abbreviation denoting emissions market) that are guaranteed to the most polluting producers under the ETS framework and have been maintained until now to protect them from foreign competition. But the aim is to gradually push European companies towards alternatives that release less carbon into the atmosphere; These alternatives will become more cost-effective once current exemptions are removed.
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Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
