Northern Lights: A bright future for carbon capture

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Far beyond just a futuristic idea from the realm of sci-fi, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is currently paving the way to achieve our net zero emission goals. Northern Lights is a unique open access CCS network that will enable industries to reduce their carbon emissions by picking up, transporting and injecting their carbon 3,000 meters below sea level off the Norwegian West coast for permanent storage. Ahead of The Global Energy Transition Month (October), Laura from GOS spoke with Emil Yde Aasen, a business developer at Northern Lights, about the highlights and challenges of working on the project.

Laura: Why is the Northern Lights project important?

Emil: If we are going to reach zero net emissions in 2050 there’s going to be a bunch of tools and ways to get there and renewables is likely to be the biggest part and contributor to that. We really need to roll out renewables at big scales, and energy efficiency is likewise hugely important, but then there’s going to be this smaller percentage where you have these heavy, hard to abate industries where it’s costly or technologically very hard to actually remove those emissions by using renewables or other similar technologies. Therefore, you have to use a technology that actually physically takes away those emissions and prevents them from going into the atmosphere. And that’s where CCS comes in as a solution. Without CCS you cannot meet net zero emissions in 2050.

“A Copernican shift for the world of CCS”

 

What is the most surprising aspect of the work you do?

Northern Lights is a project, but what we see is that by maturing the project, we are also maturing the market. By actually providing something that hasn’t been there before – a service for transport and storage of CO2 – we are enabling a wide market of carbon capture projects to be developed. Because there would be no reason to capture your CO2 if you can’t permanently store it. We spoke to a leading scientist at the ETH Zurich who has worked with CCS and capture for 20 years and when he saw Northern Lights for the first time – where we decouple the carbon source and the sink – he called it a Copernican shift for the world of CCS.

What are the challenges?

The challenges are the market mechanisms. You have this cost gap with the European ETS (Emissions Trading System), basically a European wide CO2 tax, which these days you have to pay typically 25 euros per ton of CO2 you emit. And now, CCS as a capture, transport and storage concept, is still more expensive than 25 euros, so the challenge is getting projects off the ground as the ETS price rises – and it’s projected to go much higher in the future. And then as we build more CCS projects, we will have a learning curve; technology improves and costs go down as it does with all other technology and projects, and at some point, it starts to make sense economically as well. If you go back 10 years with solar and offshore wind, perhaps wind specifically, the costs were way too high. But these days, it’s really hard competition and it’s said to be the future, so the market is driving itself. It’s the place we want to be with CCS moving forward with the marking driving itself.

What have you learned from the role?

What I’ve learned is what you would call corporate innovation, so the entrepreneurial way of thinking when trying to build a new industry with three big corporations (Shell, Equinor, and Total) that are used to oil and gas. There’s a lot of talk in Shell around entrepreneurial approaches. Ben, our CEO, has said when he talks about reshape and what Shell is doing now that we need to think more entrepreneurial, more lean. What does that actually mean? I think of course that depends on local context, but with CCS we have had to kind of believe that this will be an industry going forward. We have to take a risk, and with risks I mean commercial risks, believing that the market will develop in the future. We’ve done that with oil and gas as well when we’ve done explorations for wells and gas. With CCS the market is still being developed, the framework itself is still being developed; that means that we as company developing this project are setting the course. That’s what I mean by developing the project – we are also developing the market.

What do you enjoy the most from the work?

You get to build a market and a project and a technology that the world actually needs to be able to reach net zero. And it’s a good example of where we, as a former oil and gas company trying to become a broad energy company in the future, are actually using our subsurface knowledge as a foundation to build something new. So we are using that knowledge to actually provide a service that will hopefully enable us to reach net zero emissions by 2050. For me at least, it feels a bit like walking the talk with Shell. If you believe that reaching the Paris goal is the most important thing that we can do as an industry these days, well it’s a really good place to be, and a good place to work.

  • For more information on the Northern Lights project, please check out the official website at: https://northernlightsccs.eu/
  • October is Global Energy Transition Month! Click here to find out more.

Emil Yde Aasen is a Business Developer and an engineer with the Northern Lights Project in Shell Norway. He currently lives in Oslo and is a member of Shell’s Future Energy Lions (FEL) network, contributing to the transformation of Shell into a future energy company.

Coming back home – Dubai to Bangalore

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We went to UAE as a newly married couple and were coming back home as a family of 4 after 7 years of precious time spent with many wonderful people. We bid farewell to the visionary city of Dubai with the fireworks at Burj Khalifa on New Year’s Eve and arrived at the lovely and inclusive Namma Bengaluru on January 1, 2019.

Being a young family, our preparation was mostly focused on searching schools and identifying the residential areas around it. It really helped to speak with a few colleagues in Shell Technology Centre Bangalore (STCB) while we were still in Dubai to get advice on these topics. It is important to keep in mind the difference in curriculum, age criteria and the style of teaching. Although both of us had worked in Bangalore before moving to UAE, it was a big change for both our girls. While India for them was limited to the cities of Udaipur and Dewas, and Sunday for them did not mean a weekend, we ensured that our 5-year-old stayed in touch with her friends through video calls, especially during the settling in period. Her school in Dubai was very supportive in preparing both her and us for the transition. And the kids adjusted quite fast.

The best thing about the STCB campus is the daycare facility, which has been a big help for us, especially initially as we started on our new jobs with no immediate domestic support. We could receive the details about the daycare in advance of our arrival through Outpost. The initial months are very crucial to adjust into new conditions, more so from a family perspective. In addition to the time needed to zero in on new accommodation, school, crèche, it is important to spend time with kids while doing a full-time job. Both of us had very supportive teams which helped us sail through this phase.

While we prepared for most aspects, we had our share of challenges. We had an emergency medical situation in less than a week after arriving in Bangalore and what really helped was proximity to the hospital and a helpful insurance provider. We would really recommend for everyone to always keep emergency details handy at all times, especially in such transition times.

One of the few things that we were looking forward to with our move back was getting back in touch with old friends given that our alma mater IIT Bombay has a huge alumni base in Bangalore.

Our girls have transitioned from Desert city to Garden city, moving from Shawarma to relishing the idlis, vadas and dosas, and have enjoyed the weekend trips to Cubbon park and Bangalore Palace. It has been a little over 1.5 years since we repatriated and we have been lucky to forge many new friendships and build new memories.

Ali Zakir and Mehzabin Amin spent 7 years living and working in Dubai before repatriating to India in 2019. Currently they live with their two children in Bangalore where they work at the Shell Technology Centre Bangalore (STCB).

Repatriation – “the unexpected shock with the expected”

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Betthilde Keij, a Dutch national and former Outpost Focal Point in Paris, reflects on her repatriation journey to The Netherlands.

After fourteen years abroad in Paris, London, Doha (Qatar), Stavanger (Norway), Geoje (South Korea) and Perth (Australia) we were heading back “home”, to The Netherlands, summer 2018. From 2004 to 2018 our life had been all about moving, settling in, making new friends and making many houses our home. Now we were ready again to make our home country our “real home”.

Before we started expat life, we had already decided that if we would have children and the oldest would be ready for high school, we would be heading back home. A thoughtful decision to ensure our children would grow roots in the Netherlands, a place we – as parents – want to call home. In 2006, 2007 and 2010, our children were born in Paris and Qatar. In 2018, the oldest was 12 and ready to start secondary education – we knew our time abroad was up. They had never actually lived in The Netherlands, but we had prepared them by keeping up with their Dutch Grammar, Spelling and Vocabulary through home schooling (aside from attending their International Schools) while living abroad.

As a sociologist, I had given many workshops to the Chamber of Commerce (Stavanger) and Outpost (Norway and Korea) to expats on how to make the most out of expat life. I had prepared other families about expatriation and repatriation and thought I knew what would be ahead. With every move I had made sure that the children would settle well into their new schools and their new home. I had made sure that my husband was ready to work from day one in our new country. I had retrained myself to be a teacher and, in every country, I had been working as a music teacher, a (voluntary) choir conductor, and/or setting up musicals in international schools. Having moved houses six times, we had our “script” ready for another move and was prepared to do the same again, except this time I thought it would be simpler as we were moving back to the Netherlands.

“I had changed through the expat experience“

Yet, this time it was very different. The grief of saying goodbye again to friends who had become family, to homes, schools, jobs and an international setting that had become our “normal”, was felt ever so more – maybe even six times more. Settling back in the Netherlands was wonderful in the sense of being close to family again. But sometimes very hard in many other and unexpected ways.
Feeling strange and sometimes misunderstood despite looking “so Dutch”; feeling anxious when entering the schoolyard (who do I talk to? And what to say when nothing I say seems ‘normal’?), trying to find and buy a house which took us a year, trying to keep up or even to catch up with family and friends while also trying to maintain friendships abroad. Losing part of my identity and trying to find out who I was back in The Netherlands made me somehow try to pick up where I left in 2004, but I had changed through the expat experience.

I thought I had to roll out our “script” again. While my husband and children were doing very well, I rushed into new jobs and new purposes. It took me some time to realize that I did not need to take on this country as a new posting. After settling in our house “where we want to grow old” I started to simply enjoy more peace and rush less into new work and projects. I started to realize more and more that this “posting” would not be just 3 or 4 years but “forever”. I simply could not just roll out our script but had to re-invent myself – this time for “real settlement”.

Looking back, I now know that repatriation – or as Ruth van Reken calls it the “unexpected shock with the expected” – should not be taken too lightly. The positive aspects of living abroad and the foundations we made as a family in these different countries cannot be taken away. They are meant to be built on, also here now at home in The Netherlands.

The challenges lie in the accepting of and giving time to the discomfort, struggle and grief when settling in and finding our sense of belonging – without the international setting that once felt so normal. I allowed myself to be shaken. And there are many opportunities to find a new purpose, but with repatriation I can only say: give yourself some more time to adjust. You will stay here for a while…. You are home!

Betthilde Keij is a sociologist, school teacher, conductor, singer and former expat. After living abroad for 14 years, she now lives in The Netherlands with her husband and three children.