OSLO (dpa-AFX) - When it comes to the climate-friendly transformation of the economy, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck is hoping for Norway. For this, the Green politician met Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and various ministerial colleagues in deep snowy Oslo on Thursday, gave a speech at a business conference, met entrepreneurs and signed a declaration.

Hydrogen in, carbon dioxide out - that's how future cooperation is to work. By 2030, the infrastructure for a large-scale import of hydrogen to Germany is to be created, probably through a large pipeline. Hydrogen is to play a major role as a climate-friendly energy carrier. It could replace coal in steel mills and natural gas in gas-fired power plants.

Conversely, climate-damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) from industry is to find its way to Norway and be stored underground. Both are now to be investigated in a feasibility study. Results are expected in the spring.

Norway is already Germany's most important energy supplier, but still for gas. "Norway is an important, like-minded and very reliable partner for Germany," Habeck praised. By contrast, he accuses Vladimir Putin, president of what was until recently Germany's most important energy supplier, Russia, of waging war against his own people and recalls "death, torture and rape" in Ukraine.

In order for hydrogen from the north to become a reality, the industry will first have to provide all the political support it needs. RWE CEO Markus Krebber and Anders Opedal of the Norwegian energy supplier Equinor concluded a strategic energy partnership on Thursday in the presence of Habeck and Støre - on the assumption that the hydrogen pipeline will be built as well as the network for further transport in Germany, which is still lacking.

If this works out, so-called blue hydrogen will flow to Germany first, with natural gas still being used in its production. By 2030, capacities for an initial 2 gigawatts (GW) of imports are to be created, and by 2038 for up to 10 GW. In the long term, Germany is to receive green hydrogen from Norway, produced with the help of renewable energies. The large offshore wind farms needed for this do not yet exist, and time is pressing, Habeck said. "Waiting until everything is there takes too long. We have no time to lose." Therefore, blue hydrogen for now.

Habeck also wants to push ahead with a technology that is viewed much more skeptically by environmentalists in Germany: underground storage of the industrial waste product CO2, abbreviated CCS because of the English name "Carbon Capture and Storage." Critics fear that the gas will escape from the storage facilities and that the technology will reduce the incentive to avoid greenhouse gases in the first place. There is an answer to both, Habeck said. "According to all scientific analyses, the technology is safe." In Norway, he said, there are decades of experience with it. "And what was feared, that the CO2 would escape again, possibly causing damage elsewhere, has not happened." His conclusion: "It's better to put CO2 into the ground than into the atmosphere."

"We know how to do this in Norway," Støre assures. He says there are industries where it is difficult to reduce energy consumption despite new technologies - in waste incineration plants or cement works, for example. Modern industry will therefore have to find a way to extract the CO2 and store it safely. Since the 1990s in the North Sea and since 2008 in the Barents Sea, he said, Norway has been capturing CO2 and pushing it two and a half thousand meters below the seafloor. "And we can document that it is being stored safely." In Germany, the legal framework does not currently allow for that, according to a report by the German government. However, the relevant law is to be revised.

Habeck and Støre cite climate protection. Regarding the concerns, Habeck said the situation has changed since the debate on CCS began in Germany 15 years ago. Back then, he said, the technology was intended to allow coal-fired power plants to continue operating. "Basically, it was the extension of coal power. And rightly so, people said back then, 'Oh, guys, not with us.'" Today, he said, it's different. Technology has evolved, he said, and the goal is to make climate protection progress as quickly as possible. "Everyone knows that time is slipping away from us, that we were too slow, too bad in the past."

In Norway, CO2 is expected to disappear in large quantities under the seabed starting in 2024. Among other places, CO2 is to be split off, liquefied and stored off the coast at a depth of 2,600 meters at the Brevik cement plant about 150 kilometers south of Oslo. Habeck plans to visit the plant on Friday. The decision to provide government funding for the capture and storage of CO2 in the multi-billion dollar Longship project was made in Norway in December 2020. In addition to the Norwegian state, major oil companies such as Shell and Total are involved in the project./hrz/DP/ngu