What are the risks in storing CO2 underground?

This week, the EU's Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra warned that "You cannot magically CCS yourself out of the problem". But the new policy he was presenting that day still called for 280 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to be permanently stored underground.

The extent to which carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology should be a part of climate planning is contentious, but advocates often point to Norway's long-running CCS plants as proof that it can work.

Are Equinor's North Sea gas field facilities the gold standard for successful CCS, or have they had issues too? Last year, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) published a report exploring that question.

Bertie spoke to the report's author and IEEFA's Strategic Energy Finance Advisor for Asia, Grant Hauber, to hear about his findings.

Further reading: 

• Norway’s Sleipner and Snøhvit CCS: Industry models or cautionary tales?, IEEFA, 2023
• Blue hydrogen: Not clean, not low carbon, not a solution, IEEFA, 2023
• 'Carbon capture key to reaching net-zero, but climate chief urges caution', Euronews, 7/2/24
• 'What is happening with Carbon Capture and Storage?', Land and Climate Review, 2022
• 'Why Carbon Capture and Storage matters: overshoot, models, and money', Land and Climate Review, 2022
• 'Capturing and storing problems', Land and Climate Review, 2022

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