The idea to run Spits­ber­gen “car­bon-free” is based on CCS: cap­tu­ring and con­se­quent sto­rage of car­bon dioxi­de in sand­stone lay­ers in the ground. After three sci­en­ti­fic dril­lings had to be abor­ted due to tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, a fourth one has suc­cessful­ly rea­ched pro­mi­sing sand­stone lay­ers at a depth of up to 870 met­res. Less than 1000 met­res that had been hoped for, but enough in case fur­ther test­ing shows the lay­ers to be capa­ble of long-term sto­rage of CO₂-emis­si­ons from, for exam­p­le, Longyearbyen’s coal power plant.

Tech­ni­ques thus deve­lo­ped by UNIS (the uni­ver­si­ty in Lon­gyear­ben) might in the future be used else­whe­re in the world.

Source: Unis