News

CO2 storage debate in Germany hardening: northern Länder demand right to block storage on their territory

CO2 Capture and storage (CCS)
Prosjektlab

Publish date: January 6, 2011

Written by: Jonas Helseth

After yet another postponement of the German law implementing the EU CO2 storage directive in November 2010, German Minister of Economy Rainer Brüderle of the liberal FDP has apparently had to further water down his proposal.

Apart from strong NGO and public opposition to the former draft laws, the governing parties (FDP and Christian democrat CDU/CSU) are themselves split on the issue. Not only do the two ministers charged with the tasks – Mr. Brüderle and CDU Minister of Environment Norbert Röttgen – have to agree between them; the main hurdle remains the northern federal states of Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein, in which important geological storage areas are situated. They aim to secure the right to block any storage of CO2 on their territory. Due to constitutional issues, this is unlikely to be possible, but leaks from a new proposal suggest that there will be a right for the Länder to set a maximum storage allowance for CO2 in their territory, with a mandatory minimum of 500.000 tons /year. This will allow the Länder to virtually block storage as this minimum is likely too low to be feasible for commercial projects. It remains however unclear whether this solution is deemed acceptable for Messrs. Brüderle and Röttgen . By June 2011, the Reichstag must adopt an implementing bill for the CO2 storage directive to avoid breaking EU law.

Meanwhile in federal state Brandenburg, in which the planned €1.5 billion Vattenfall CCS demonstration plant is to be built, the anxiety of the regional government is growing. Vattenfall Deutschland CEO, Mr. Hatakka, yet hopes to effectively spend the €180 million awarded by the European Commission for its Jänschwalde project. Nevertheless he has made it clear that without an adequate legal basis, there will be no CCS project in Germany. Brandenburg’s economy minister, socialist Ralf Christoffers points out that the opposition to CCS comes hand in hand with an opposition to building new power infrastructure for renewable energy – notably wind power – of which nearly 1,000 km will be required in Brandenburg alone according to a recent study. On this background, arguments that CCS binds up investments that should be spent for renewables only plays into the hands of the nuclear industry, which recently achieved a life-extension of German nuclear plants until 2023. “In Germany,” Christoffers sums up, “there is a great enthusiasm for science. However, when scientific discoveries are transferred into technology, opposition comes forth.”

With even the Lutheran Church of Berlin opposing CCS in Germany, and German environmental NGO BUND pointing at “enormous risks” based on (at best) very thin scientific evidence, we can only hope that Mr. Christoffers with allies will prevail in their quest to bring this debate to a more serious level, based on facts rather than feelings. A debate in which the future of the global climate is at stake deserves as much.