After the postponing of the investment decision to 2016 this spring, the ministry of environment asked KLIF for a feedback as soon as they could state that the health and environmental challenges regarding use of amine in CO2 capture was clarified to an extent that they could “be able to give manageable emission requirements for a full scale CO2 capture facility”
29th of August KLIF, at last came with this feedback in a letter to the Ministry of environment. In this letter KLIF states that the risks for health- and environmental damage regarding use of amine technology is smaller than assumed earlier, and far smaller than assumed when the decision of postponing the Mongstad project was taken.
"Based on all the new knowledge published within the last year, together with the calculations from NILU on specific expected emissions from TCM, KLIF consider that there is highly probable that specific emission targets for a full scale CO2 capture unit based on amines can be given”
The Norwegian Minister of environment, Erik Solheim have several times pointed out that the investment decision shale be taken latest in 2016.
“There is only if the amine technology not can be used and we have to consider other possibilities that there will be new delays.”
"If something shows that this will go bether than we fear, the investment decision can be taken before 2016”.
This supports the decisions taken in the government’s report nr. 9 to the parliament about full scale CO2 capture that was published in March:
"If the challenges regarding health risks in the amine technology can be solved before the technology qualification phase is done, the question about choice of technology will be discussed immediately. This can give the project a faster progress"
ZERO now states that this means that the amine technology has to be considered as qualified and “without risks”, and that Statoil and the Ministry of environment have to get the project back on track and resume the tender process that was stopped last year.
ZERO is therefore very glad that the Minister of Environment, Erik Solheim, says to the newspaper “Dagens Næringsliv” that he wants to speed up the Mongstad project.
