Carbfix
The company's mission is to become a key instrument in tackling the climate crisis by reaching one billion tons of permanently stored CO2 (1 GtCO2) as rapidly as possible.
ID: 546938893684-70
Lobbying Activity
3 Jul 2025
In considering the possible inclusion of permanent CDR into ETS, Carbfix feels it is important that the Commission also considers including another category of climate mitigation that may have been overlooked in this context, namely capture and storage (CCS) of CO2 emissions from industrial installations not covered by ETS. A relevant real-world example of this is geothermal energy production, as well as all other CO2-emitting installations that are excluded from ETS either because of their small size or sectoral exclusions. Today, the EU provides no systematic financial incentive to capture and store CO2 emissions form such installations. However, because any and all storage of CO2 regardless of its source is regulated by ETS, storage of CO2 from non-ETS industrial sources (e.g. geothermal power plants) carries significant financial and administrative costs and liabilities such as a financial contribution and financial guarantee to cover short- and long-term obligations regarding site monitoring, site closure, and potential leakages without any associated incentives or upsides. In short: Storage of CO2 from non-ETS industrial sources is actively dis-incentivized in the current setup. Despite this, and with crucial support from the EUs Innovation Fund, Carbfix has collaborated with ON Power to capture and permanently store over 100kt of CO2 emissions from the Hellisheiði geothermal plant, which is the largest geothermal plant in Europe. Carbfixs storage site for these emissions is fully permitted under the CCS Directive through the first onshore geological storage permit ever issued in Europe. There is significant potential to implement CCS projects at other plants, both in Iceland and elsewhere, to reduce their CO2 emissions, but the current mismatch of liabilities vs. incentives for storage operators heavily discourages development of further projects. To correct this mismatch, we strongly recommend that storage of CO2 from non-ETS industrial installations be made eligible for incentives under ETS in the same manner as is being considered for CDR. This would: - Ensure that storage developers are not only burdened with liabilities and requirements but also have corresponding financial incentives - Correct the illogical situation where ETS regulates storage regardless of source, but does not incentivize storage regardless of source - Support the reduction of emissions through CCS projects at non-ETS installations; projects that currently enjoy no or limited systematic EU financial incentives - Encourage development of much needed storage sites that can then be made available to store CO2 from other sources as well as is the case in Iceland, where the Hellisheiði storage site is also used to store CO2 captured from the atmosphere at on-site DAC facilities.
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