Last Wednesday, the German cabinet approved a bill to accelerate infrastructure development for carbon capture and storage (CCS). The move signalled an important step in the country’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2045 while continuing to maintain critical, hard-to-decarbonise industries.

The new bill declares the construction and operation of CO₂ storage facilities and pipelines as being in the “overriding public interest.” This simplifies planning and approval procedures, authorising the takeover, with compensation, of private land for CO₂ pipeline construction. The bill also includes provisions for adapting or converting existing natural gas pipelines to transport carbon dioxide, significantly reducing the need for entirely new infrastructure.

As a result of the new legislation, hard-to-carbonise sectors including cement and lime production as well as gas power plants will be permitted to store CO₂ offshore, under the seabed, or inland, provided that federal states grant permission. However, the legislation does exclusively prohibit the underground storage of CO₂ emissions from coal-fired power plants.

According to multiple publications, the new framework is more ambitious than previous proposals; Carbon Herald, for example, describes the legislation as “broadening the scope of CCS deployment and aligning policy with Germany’s longer-term climate ambitions.” Previous attempts to advance CCS technology prior to the government’s collapse last November were unsuccessful.

It’s reported that Germany’s geological potential for storage is substantial, with an estimated capacity of 1.5 billion to 8.3 billion tons of CO₂ beneath its portion of the North Sea.