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Nordic CCS Summer School held in Norway

Norcem cement facility with CCS in Brevik, Norway
Norcem cement facility with CCS in Brevik, Norway
Vetle Houg, Heidelberg Cement

Publish date: August 19, 2015

From 9 to 14 August 2015 the second NORDICCS’ CCS Summer School was held in Porsgrunn and Trondheim, Norway. NORDICCS is the Nordic CCS Competence Centre which serves as a platform working for increased carbon capture and storage (CCS) deployment in the Nordic countries. Together with SINTEF Energy Research, the CCS Summer School gave young professionals and PhD students working with CCS – including two Bellona staff – the opportunity to expand their knowledge along the complete CCS chain.

The participants were mostly based at Nordic universities, but originating from all over the world. They included Teodora Serafimova and Rannveig van Iterson from Bellona Europa. In addition, Bellona Europa’s Keith Whiriskey gave a lecture on CCS outlook in Europe and beyond, highlighting the current state of CCS deployment in Europe and the incentives that are needed for full-scale CCS deployment.

The aim of the Summer School was to set CCS on the agenda and encourage collaboration within the CCS research community. As CCS deployment depends on collaboration between the private sector, the public sector and the scientific community across borders, the CCS Summer School initiative serves as a great contribution to such aims.

In the beginning of the week, the participants visited the Norcem cement and Yara fertiliser factories in Brevik, Norway, to get an impression of CO2 handling at these facilities. During the rest of the week, the course contained lectures on the full CCS chain, dealing with the technologies as well as regulative challenges concerning CCS, its infrastructure, funding and public acceptance.

The lectures were held by well-known researchers from the CCS community of the Nordic countries. In addition to the technical lectures, Kikki Kleiven from the University of Bergen gave an informative talk on climate change and its destructive effects, thus illustrating the pressing need for solutions like CCS. Furthermore, Per Espen Stoknes from BI Norway held an engaging talk on the existing psychological barriers for building public support for effective climate policies.

The CCS Summer School has provided the participants with a great opportunity to experience industrial CCS application in real life and created better understanding across the young CCS community.

More information and the complete program of the CCS Summer School here.