As a byproduct of certain industrial processes such as the production of cement or waste incineration, CO₂ emissions are produced that are technically unavoidable. To prevent this CO₂ from being released into the atmosphere, it is captured. It is subsequently either transported by pipeline to sites where it is reused as a raw material in the chemical industry (CCU), or conveyed to deep, safe, geological repositories where it is permanently stored (CCS). Both options are required to achieve climate targets and secure the competitiveness of our economic region.
No, absolutely not. Avoiding and reducing CO₂ emissions is always of top priority wherever possible. The CO₂ infrastructure provides a solution solely for those emissions that are demonstrably “hard-to-abate or unavoidable“. It is not a substitution but rather a necessary supplement to achieve climate neutrality.
For small volumes and short distances, CO₂ can be transported by truck or train. When large industrial volumes need to be transported safely, reliably and efficiently over long distances, however, pipelines are the superior solution – just as they are for natural gas or water.
The safety of our infrastructure is of the highest priority. As with all technical systems, there is a comprehensive and proven safety concept for the extremely unlikely chance of a leakage. Pipelines are monitored round the clock and, as with natural gas pipelines, equipped with automatic shut-off stations. If there is a malfunction, these stations immediately isolate the affected section and mitigate any possible leakage to a very small, non-critical amount.
The aim of the entire process is to have a positive net impact on the environment when CO₂ is prevented from entering the atmosphere. As with any infrastructure project, there are local, temporary effects during the construction phase. These effects are reduced to an absolute minimum through careful planning, environmental impact assessments and compensation measures. The long-term safety of storage in geological repositories is ensured by strict regulations and constant monitoring that rules out risks for groundwater or soil.
Developing a CO₂ infrastructure requires high initial investments. Long term, however, it is much more expensive to do nothing – whether because of costs arising from climate damage, the loss of industrial jobs or penalty fines for failing to achieve climate targets. It is planned to fund such a project through a solidarity model whereby costs are borne by the CO₂ emitters that use the network. To make this economically viable, however, initial state funding and reliable political regulatory frameworks are required similar to those needed to develop electricity or hydrogen grids.
Research on reusing CO₂ (CCU) is making huge progress. Captured CO₂ is a valuable raw material and can already be used to produce plastics, building materials or synfuels (synthetic fuels). These technologies are the key to a future circular economy in which we need fewer fossil raw materials such as crude oil and natural gas. Many of these techniques are however still in the development and scaling phase, which is why safe carbon storage (CCS) continues to play such a significant role.
It is not easy to imagine a tonne of gaseous CO₂, but it fills a space of over five hundred cubic metres – corresponding roughly to the volume of a single-family home. A standard freight railway car could transport only a small fraction of this. When we speak of over a million tonnes of CO₂, this corresponds to the volume of a million single-family homes. Transporting this amount by truck would require roughly 40,000 trips. By comparison, the unavoidable emissions produced by the cement and lime industries together with waste incineration in Germany alone amount to almost 60 million tonnes per year. In the Bavarian Chemical Triangle, there are sources of unavoidable CO₂ in a range of several hundred thousand tonnes per year. This clearly shows why a pipeline is the only sensible transport solution for these industrial volumes.