The preparation phase for the Coda Terminal, a CO₂ Mineral Storage Terminal, is now underway. The Terminal will be based in the bay of Straumsvík, in South West Iceland, and will be equipped to receive large quantities of CO₂ transported by ship. The CO₂ will be sourced from industrial emitters in Northern Europe and will be injected into the basaltic bedrock where it rapidly turns into stone via the Carbfix technology. At full scale, the Coda Terminal will provide an annual storage amounting to three million tonnes of CO₂. 

Edda Sif Pind Aradóttir, CEO of Carbfix: „The Coda Terminal will launch a new climate-friendly industry that is based on innovative solutions and up-scaled climate action. By receiving CO₂ from neighbouring countries for permanent mineral storage, Iceland takes on a pioneering role within Europe. The Coda Terminal will receive CO₂ transported by specifically designed ships operating on sustainable fuel. The transport of CO₂ to Iceland is enabled by the low costs associated with onshore mineral storage. In fact, the Coda Terminal will be the first large scale geological storage project in Europe that is carried out onshore. The Carbfix technology will then be used to permanently and safely turn CO₂ into stone, deep in within the basaltic bedrock. The Terminal will also be able to store CO₂ from local industries, as well as CO₂ captured directly from the air (DAC). 

The nature of mineral storage operations allows for a gradual build-up of the site with minimal risk. The Coda Terminal will be constructed in three phases, with a full-scale capacity of three million tonnes of CO₂ annually. The preparation phase will begin in 2021 with engineering and permitting processes. Drilling of the first wells will start in 2022, with the aim of commencing operations in 2025 and reaching full scale by 2030. 

Natural process and plenty of storage space 

Nature stores vast quantities of CO₂ in rocks. The Carbfix process accelerates this natural process by dissolving CO₂ in water before injecting it deep underground, where it turns into solid minerals in less than two years. The only feedstock for the process is water, electricity, CO₂ and reactive rock formations such as basalts, and the entire on-site operations will run on renewable energy. 

“The environment in Straumsvík, with its fresh basaltic lavas and vast sources of groundwater streams, is perfectly suited for permanent and safe CO₂ mineral storage. The power requirements are minimal, and the transmission grid and an industrial harbour are already in place,” says Aradóttir, adding that the storage capacity is more than sufficient, as Carbfix geologists estimate that Iceland alone could store around 80-200 times the annual global emission of CO₂. 

Transforming the cost structures of CCS projects 

The Icelandic parliament recently adopted the EU’s CCS Directive to comply with safe transport and storage of CO₂ in Iceland. The legislation enables emitters that fall under the Emission Trading System (ETS) to use the Carbfix technology to reduce their emission. "The Directive has created an incentive for companies to adopt innovative carbon capture and storage technologies, like Carbfix. The price of emission allowance has increased rapidly lately and currently sits at about €42/tonne. This is significantly higher than the costs associated with Carbfix's ongoing CCS project in Iceland. We are quite certain that the cost of storage at the Coda Terminal will be considerably lower than €20/tonne”. 

The name, Coda, comes from music and refers to a concluding passage that brings the musical piece to a satisfactory

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