Carbon Engineering (CE)- the Canadian-based direct air capture (DAC) company, Carbon Removal – the Norwegian DAC development company, and Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV) – a subsidiary of Occidental focused on advancing clean energy technologies, have announced they will be working together to deploy commercial direct air capture projects in Norway.
The three companies have started conceptual design work on a Norwegian DAC facility capable of capturing between 500,000 and 1 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. The facility will be located in the Kollsnes area, and will be delivering permanent carbon dioxide removal by capturing CO2 from the air and then safely and permanently storing it deep below the seabed in an offshore geological storage site.
Commercial DAC projects throughout Norway would help the country accelerate its efforts to reach net-zero emissions in a cost-efficient way. The technology allows for a compensation of the emissions for sectors of the economy that are challenging to decarbonize directly like aviation and agriculture.
In an effort to accelerate deployment of the direct air capture, Carbon Engineering also licenses its technology to its partners that want to build and operate DAC facilities locally. The business model is expected to create regional and national economic benefits, support the growth of industry supply chains, and enable carbon capture utilization and storage hubs that would reduce emissions of industrial sectors.
Norway is a country that offers several advantages for the deployment of direct air capture projects. Its power generation is fully renewable and reliable in supply, there is an established workforce from the oil and gas industry that has the skills needed to build and operate direct air capture plants.
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The country also offers the infrastructure for permanently storing CO2 offshore via projects in development like Longship – the Norwegian Government’s full-scale carbon capture, transport, and storage initiative. All these advantages are paving the way for its forefront position in the expansion of new low-carbon technologies that are critical for reaching the world’s goal of eliminating carbon emissions.
