Europe’s largest industrial carbon-capture project has begun operating at Yara’s massive ammonia and fertilizer plant in Sluiskil, the Netherlands.

 

Europe’s largest industrial carbon-capture project has begun operating at Yara’s massive ammonia and fertilizer plant in Sluiskil, the Netherlands.

The facility is designed to capture and liquefy up to 800,000 metric tons of CO₂ every year—equivalent to roughly 0.5% of the Netherlands’ annual emissions.

Instead of releasing that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Yara will store it temporarily in seven tanks before loading it onto specially designed ships. The vessels will transport the liquefied CO₂ across the North Sea to Norway.

From there, it will travel through a pipeline and be injected into a geological reservoir approximately 2.6 kilometers—or 1.6 miles—beneath the seabed for permanent storage.

Two ships, each capable of transporting around 7,200 tons, are expected to visit the plant as often as twice a week. Over 15 years, the project could capture and store approximately 12 million tons of CO₂.

The operation is also significant because it creates a commercial, cross-border carbon-storage chain: emissions captured in one country will be transported and permanently stored beneath another country’s seabed.

Could projects like this become an important tool for cleaning up heavy industry?

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