The Whitepaper launch session discussed the use of CCUS technologies to achieve industrial decarbonisation. The moderator of the Whitepaper launch session and Head of NTNU Brussels Office, Massimo Busuoli, opened the workshop: "We are living in strange times, and we have important challenges to solve so to achieve decarbonisation in Europe by 2050 that implies a lot of investments in new technologies with specific reference on energy technology. CCUS technology is now expanding its capability to represent one among the possible solutions that all together can contribute to achieve the important objective that Europe has defined in its Green Deal Strategy for a full De-carbonisation of Europe."

In the morning session, different CCUS aspects and perspectives were presented from the European Commission, European Parliament, and industry. Head of Unit Low Emission Future Industries, Jane Amilhat, from DG RTD, European Commission, stated: ''Beyond the negative impact of fossil fuels on climate change, we cannot afford anymore to be dependent of dictatorial regimes for our energy supplies all around the world. We need to look at all solutions and that is what we are doing. CCUS is certainly one of them to reach our targets. The DG RTD want to invest in these technologies to make them market ready and compatible with use in the market including for the industry and potential production of synthetic fuels."

There is a need to step up decarbonisation and this will be possible with higher ETS prices. Europe need to start with the actual scale up of CCUS. Scaling up has contributed a lot to cost reductions and with learning curves, more investments into the sectors, this rapid cost decrease happen. CCUS plays a role as the product that helps with the financing and facilitate the scale up which in its turn will lower prices.

ECCSEL ERIC’s role and our research in this sector will be crucial to make scale up of CCUS happen and start to see negative emissions in larger volume by the end of the decade.

Per-Olof Granström from Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP): "We need all the technologies that can bring us to net zero and we need to have a technology-neutral approach to reach this in a good way. The European approach comes all down to cross-border. We need to develop a CO2 infrastructure. [...] Without the infrastructure we will not be able to develop this further. [...] We have a huge task in front of us. We need a strategy for CCS and CCUS that takes into account the RI needs, the targets. This fits very well with the energy system integration strategy, it fits very well with the EU hydrogen strategy. We need this guiding light.''

The afternoon session discussed the national efforts to enable CCUS deployment and the role of ECCSEL ERIC, with the views from the founding members of ECCSEL (France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, UK) and from stakeholders from other countries (Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania).  The round table that followed provided an opportunity to discuss what we can do when it comes to investments in new ECCSEL ERIC research facilities and inclusion of additional member states in ECCSEL ERIC, in order to tackle at best the research and innovation priorities of the European CCUS Roadmap to 2030.

Isabelle Czernichowski from BRGM concluded the workshop: ''ECCSEL is a key tool to facilitate ambitious R&D activities, European industrial initiatives and education and specialists for the new CCUS industry. It is already acknowledged by the SET Plan. What is important is that we make the best use of ECCSEL, that we enlarge the membership to additional European countries for a fully pan European effort. We want to accelerate the R&I, the scale up of the CCUS technology everywhere in Europe because this is a key climate change mitigation technology. By joining all efforts for research, innovation, investments, we can succeed in implementing the technology as soon as possible to respond to the climate urgency.''

A report on the outcomes of the workshop is being prepared and will be published at the end of the summer.