"CARBON capture and storage could be a very big industry," according to Norway's Erik Lindeberg, chief scientist at Sintef Petroleumsforskning AS, but "the politicians, not the engineers, will decide", he says.

The North Sea carbon storage market may be worth about €2.9 trillion, almost equal to Norway's past and future oil and gas output, says Lindeberg. The country's share of this may be more than half, with the UK and other countries with territory in the North Sea also benefitting.

Lindeberg estimates the cost of capturing, transporting and storing carbon will be about €47.60 a metric ton, of which about 15 per cent is for storing and transporting. The North Sea's storage capacity is about 400 billion tons. "The North Sea has the potential to store all of the EU's CO2 emissions for several hundred years," he says. Norway's oil giant Statoil has injected carbon under its Sleipner field since 1996 and is involved in similar projects at the Arctic Snohvit liquefied gas plant, the Algerian Salah gas field and is developing carbon capture at a gas plant and refinery. - Bloomberg