A CO2 certificate should cost at least €20 to induce industrial companies to invest in climate protection, calculate the experts. However, last year a certificate cost only €13 on average, according to the German Finance Ministry. In January 2012 it dropped as low as €6 on the Leipziger Energy Exchange. One reason for the plummet: since the start of the year, air traffic is also taking part in emissions trading – so the offer of certificates is currently much stronger than demand.

However, that may be changing: beginning in 2013, when the system will be managed for the EU as a whole from Brussels, the certificates being traded should become scarcer. All industrial operations with annual CO2 emissions greater than 10,000 metric tons will be included in trading from that point. Up to the present, the system has only covered thermal power plants with output exceeding 20 MW, iron- and steelworks, coking plants, refineries and cracking plants, cement and lime plants, the glass, ceramics and brick industries, and paper and cellulose manufacturers. Taken together, these industries account for around half of all European carbon dioxide emissions.

The European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is an instrument of EU climate policy. Companies receive certificates that give them the right to emit a certain amount of CO2. Unused certificates can be sold, for example through the EEX Energy Exchange in Leipzig. Those who emit more CO2 must pay fines or purchase additional certificates.

Currently, EU members are negotiating the 7th Environment Action Program, which will take effect in 2013 and apply even stricter standards. Thus, independently of the price of CO2 certificates, pressure on industry to seek environmental solutions will continue to rise – concerning both processes and additional installations such as CO2 capture facilities.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the name of the process through which CO2 is captured from waste gas and brought into long-term storage. According to the Global CCS Institute, there are currently 74 major CCS projects in the planning, construction or operating phases worldwide. The problem: capture and transport of CO2 requires a great deal of energy using currently available technology, and significantly reduces overall efficiency. Scientists are therefore searching for methods that will capture CO2 from waste gases with less energy consumption, and store them safely.

Current progress in CCS can be viewed at HANNOVER MESSE 2012: Vattenfall, the power plant construction firm Alstom and the region of Berlin-Brandenburg, for example, provide information about their projects in this field at the Research & Technology and Energy trade shows. Climate protection and environmental technologies are bundled in the IndustrialGreenTec event. Among the focus areas of this new trade show are processes for reducing air pollution and the introduction and monitoring of environmental parameters and contaminants. CO2 capture methods such as post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxyfuel technology are also presented here.