Here they are testing how CO₂ can be compressed: the Technology Center Mongstad in Norway
Image: Eivind Senneset
The party leadership around Robert Habeck is shaking up another taboo: the storage of carbon dioxide. This is best done in Norway, but export is not allowed yet.
Not all repositories have a hard time in Germany. There is resistance to the emplacement of highly radioactive waste: the fact that there is no such site is a main argument against nuclear power. But no one cares that since the 1970s Germany has been home to the world’s largest underground dump for toxic waste. And this despite the fact that more people worldwide have been injured in chemical accidents than have been exposed to radiation. The former Herfa-Neurode potash mine is located in Hessian Heringen, east of Bad Hersfeld halfway to Eisenach. At least 3.2 million tons of hazardous waste are stored here.
As with nuclear waste, the underground storage of carbon dioxide is controversial, and the critics are often the same. The fear is that the CO2 could contaminate the groundwater or escape, because gas is not to be trifled with. Here, too, it is overlooked that there have long been huge underground gas storage facilities, even below Berlin, for explosive natural gas. The Republic is extremely grateful for this in view of the lack of deliveries from Russia.