The Netherlands has revived a plan to store emissions under the sea

The Dutch government has set aside two billion euros for a project to capture and store emissions in an empty gas chamber under the North Sea. The NOS television station and the DutchNews.nl news server reported on Monday. Four companies based in the port of Rotterdam are involved in the project called Porthos. This is the first large-scale carbon capture scheme in the Netherlands. The Dutch government-mediated climate agreement of 2019 states that half the reduction in carbon emissions in the national industry can be achieved through carbon capture and storage. At present, companies pay around € 50 per tonne for the right to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to calculations by experts from the port of Rotterdam, carbon capture and storage would cost around € 80 per tonne. Late last year, Shell, ExxonMobil, Air Liquide and Air Products announced plans to apply for a Dutch government grant for the project, stating that by 2024, about 2.5 megatons of carbon dioxide could be stored in empty gas chambers. The infrastructure needed to reach the submarine chamber, about 20 kilometers from the coast, will be set up by the port of Rotterdam, Gasunie and the EBN energy group with funding from the European budget. Previous efforts to capture and store carbon emissions in the Netherlands have been unsuccessful. The plan, which included Shell's involvement, was dropped following protests from the local population. Shell is currently involved in similar projects in Canada and Norway. DutchNews.nl recalled that the environmental organization Greenpeace described this way of capturing and storing carbon as costly and as a measure that only postpones real improvements in environmental pollution.