Season 4 episode 8 - Northern Lights: Storing CO₂ for a More Sustainable Future

In Norway, our lives are entwined with the sea.

Our explorers were the first to reach the South Pole and were pioneers in the way that they used the sea to travel Here, deep under the water.

We are developing something that can help us tackle the climate change.

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a crucial part of meeting our ambitions to reach Net 0 by 2050 together with Society Northern Lights.

The project we are developing here is not just an opportunity for Norway, it could be a game changer in our collective fight against climate change.

I've been part of the project since the beginning, when it was on a sketch and we were developing the concept.

Northern Lights is a pioneering project to bring CO₂ from an industrial emitter for storage.

It's the first time it's been done at this commercial scale, meaning anybody could have access to safe CO₂ storage.

Here in the Norwegian Continental Shelf has an estimated capacity to store up to 80 billion tonnes of CO₂.

It is an incredible opportunity we have here so simplified.

The vessel arrives at the jetty, we use the loading arms to offload the CO₂ and onto the storage tanks.

Then they go further into the pumps, through the pipeline to offshore, where it will go down into the wells and down into the reservoir.

There is an incredible untapped potential under the seabed here.

When the CO₂ reaches the reservoir, it goes into a porous sandstone like this where it is safely and permanently stored.

Now we are approaching the ground moment where we are announcing for the world that we are ready to receive CO₂.

It's a big moment, so everything has to be perfect.

TotalEnergies teamed up with Equinor and Shell and working together with the Norwegian state, developed this first project and they are now ready to receive CO₂.

It's a symbolic moment.

We know that every time CO₂ arrives here, it means that the CO₂ is not released into the air.

Congratulation and thank you very much.

Once fully operational, Northern Lights will be able to store up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Northern Lights is designed for large industrial emitters with CO₂ emissions that cannot easily be avoided.

What we are doing is to give the emitters an alternative to releasing the CO₂ into the air, so this shows that ambitious ideas can become reality and help society reach its goals.

It feels great to be at the edge of the world like we are here and be pioneering something so important.

The developments here are giving us hope for the future.

It's like to see sometimes you make small ripples and sometimes you make big waves.

I get to work on a project that we hope will make a big difference for the world now and for many years to come.