Norway is extending timelines for CO2 storage developers because carbon capture projects are not delivering CO2 as quickly as expected. The energy minister says new storage capacity is not needed until European emitters can actually supply the captured CO2. That puts the focus on Equinor's Northern Lights facility, which still needs to be filled before the company moves on to new storage sites. The EU wants oil companies to build large scale CO2 storage capacity, but the announcement shows supply, not geology, is the bottleneck. CCS projects need both capture infrastructure and a business case for emitters to invest. Without a steady stream of CO2, more storage wells will just sit unused. For anyone tracking CCS, this is a reminder that storage capacity alone does not solve the climate problem. The missing piece is capture deployment and the policy or carbon price that makes it worthwhile.
