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Carbon negative

Soon we will be able to drive cars with a broad smile on our faces, in the knowledge that with each passing mile, we are removing a little CO₂ from the atmosphere. The energy of the future is not just carbon neutral, it is carbon negative.

“This is not science fiction”, stresses an enthusiastic Frederic Hauge, President of Bellona.

The prerequisite is that you’re driving an electric car and that it is charged with power from a power station fuelled by biomass, rather than by gas or coal, and the power station is equipped with CO₂ capture and storage (CCS).

Still not sure? Let’s take one step back. Biomass, such as plants, trees and algae, grow by absorbing the sun’s energy and CO₂ from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Apart from the ocean, trees are the most important contributors to absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Biomass is a suitable substitute for fossil fuels in power stations. For this reason, more and more power stations have entirely or partially replaced fossil fuels with biomass. CCS on biopower stations works in the same way as for coal and gas-fired power stations. The difference is that the CO₂ that is captured and stored comes from the atmosphere.

“If we use biomass in large power stations in combination with CO₂ capture and storage, we will actually be removing CO₂ from the atmosphere and producing carbon-negative electricity and heat”, says Hauge. For hundreds of millions of people, carbon-negative solutions can end up being the difference between existence and non-existence. If climate scientists like NASA’s James Hansen are right, today’s concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere must be reduced to prevent dangerous disruptions to the world’s climate.

“We must dare to open our eyes for the possibilities that carbon-negative solutions provide. And we need politicians who dare to think outside the box and invest where it really counts. The alternative is that whole countries will vanish into the sea, that the water supply for millions of people will dry up as glaciers diminish and disappear, and that natural disasters will force the world’s poorest people to leave the lands on which they have lived for generations”, says Hauge.