Oslo experiments with capturing carbon dioxide from trash fumes
Print Edition
OSLO’S main waste incinerator began the world’s first experiment to capture carbon dioxide from the fumes of burning rubbish yesterday, hoping to develop technology to enlist the world’s trash in slowing global warming.
The test at the Klemetsrud incinerator, which burns household and industrial waste, is a step beyond most efforts to capture and bury greenhouse gases at coal-fired power plants or factories using fossil fuels.
“I hope Oslo can show other cities that it’s possible” to capture emissions from trash, Oslo Mayor Marianne Borgen said at an opening ceremony at the incinerator which generates heat to warm buildings in the city.
So far, high costs have plagued technology for carbon capture and storage. Last month, almost 200 nations agreed a deal in Paris to fight climate change in a new spur for technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Klemetsrud incinerator emits more than 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, or 0.6 percent of Norway’s man-made emissions.
The test plant, in five containers feeding exhaust gases through a series of pipes and filters, will capture carbon dioxide at a rate equivalent to 2,000 tons a year until the end of April.
If it works, a full-scale carbon capture plant could be built by 2020. Carbon dioxide could then be shipped to the North Sea and injected into oil and gas fields to help boost pressure and raise production.
“We see potential in this market across the world,” said Valborg Lundegaard, head of Aker Solutions, the company running the test.
Officials declined to discuss costs but said the price of carbon dioxide in the EU emissions trading market would have to be far above a current 6 euros (US$6.50) per ton for the technology to be feasible.
About 60 percent of the rubbish burnt at Klemetsrud is of biological origin — from waste wood to food. That means capturing emissions would be a step to extract carbon from a natural cycle in so-called “negative emissions.”
“It won’t be possible to achieve goals set in the Paris agreement without wide use of negative emissions,” said Frederic Hauge, head of environmental group Bellona.
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