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Publish date: June 8, 2011
Written by: Niklas Kalvø Tessem
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The project includes 27 partners from 9 countries, and is coordinated in Kiel, Germany by the Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR), writes Eurasiareview.
The European Commission (EC) considers CCS as a potentially important technology for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the mitigation of climate change. Since several European states (UK, Norway, Netherlands, Italy) aim to store CO2 below the seabed, more work needs to be done to evaluate the safety of these sub-seabed storage sites. The EU has thus allocated €10.5 million to the ECO2 project to evaluate the likelihood of leakage, the possible impacts on marine ecosystems, and the potential economic and legal consequences of leakage from sub-seabed storage sites.
Potential risks of sub-seabed CO2 storage will be assessed comprehensively by a large team of geologists, biologists, chemists, economists, lawyers and social scientists from leading academic institutions and private companies. The first expeditions to storage sites located in the North Sea and Barents Sea will already be conducted during spring and summer 2011, to monitor the seafloor and evaluate storage safety. After four years they will provide a comprehensive risk assessment and guidelines for monitoring, as well as a best environmental practice guide for preparation and management of storage sites.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.