Strong opposition to a underground carbon dioxide ‘capture chamber’ in the north of Jutland

A group of landowners in northern Jutland have collectively dug in their heels to stamp out a power company’s plans to establish a giant underground carbon dioxide storage chamber in Jammerbugten.

Swedish power company Vattenfall plans to establish a large-scale ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS) at its plant in Jammerbugten. It would be Vattenfall’s second such storage facility, as it has already begun the world’s first pilot-scale CCS project at Schwarze Pumpe power plant in northern Germany.

But about 25 landowners in the area have now united under the banner ‘No to CO2 Storage Association’ to fight the project.

‘If they try to do this on my land then the police will have to come and drag me away,’ said Asger Møller Madsen, head of the protest group.

CCS is still an unproven approach to fighting climate change that aims to cut carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere by storing it in naturally-formed geological chambers deep under the earth’s surface.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that carbon dioxide could theoretically remain trapped for millions of years using this method, with the sites retaining over 99 percent of the gas underground for over 1,000 years.

But area residents are not convinced of the process’ safety, citing other experts and studies that point to several arguments against the Vattenfall’s project.

The power company has been promoting the argument that carbon dioxide is no more harmful than water and insists the resident have nothing to fear from the project. Vattenfall also points out that the European Union has indicated it wants 10-12 full-scale CCS projects at power plants across the continent within the next few years.

But even scientists at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland are at odds over the process.
Villy Fenhann, senior researcher at GEUS, is one of those who believes CCS diverts money from other, more viable climate solutions, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

‘We should be investing in the most environmentally friendly solutions and not in a method that is 50 percent more expensive,’ said Fenhann. ‘I wouldn’t feel safe with a CCS chamber in my backyard, either.’

Yet Fenhann’s colleague at GEUS, Thomas Vangkilde-Pedersen, said he didn’t see any danger with the project and that Jammerbugten was a perfect area to begin a new pilot.

Vangkilde-Pedersen said three things had to be present for the process to work: A particular stone type to absorb the carbon dioxide; another stone type to seal the cavity; and a structure that ensures the gas remained there. ‘Jammerbugten has all that,’ he said.

Many CCS opponents point to the Lake Nyos disaster in 1986 in Cameroon. The lake suddenly released a massive cloud of carbon dioxide, killing 1,700 people.

Vattenfall has offered Jammerbugten landowners 3,700 kroner each plus 1,000 kroner per hectare in compensation to get them ‘on side’ with the project. So far, 306 area residents have agreed to the project.

But according to the association of landowners opposed to the project, Vattenfall has also threatened to use the expropriation law to get around those who refused.

This is not the first battle Danish people have had with Vattenfall. Residents on the eastern coast of Zealand have long protested the company’s nuclear power plant at Forsmark across the Øresund Strait.