Swedish carbon capture used for fizzy drinks instead of permanent storage

A biogas plant in Linköping is capturing carbon dioxide emissions and selling them to soft drink manufacturers rather than storing them underground, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reports.

The facility, operated by Tekniska Verken, began capturing CO₂ last autumn as a byproduct of biogas production. After purification, the gas is sold to industrial gas supplier Linde, where it is used to carbonate beverages—meaning the captured emissions eventually re-enter the atmosphere.

“We’ve chosen to turn a problem into a useful product,” said Anna Lövsén, head of biogas at Tekniska Verken.

However, Sweden’s broader carbon capture efforts are stalling. An SVT investigation found over half of planned projects have been paused or cancelled. Globally, operational carbon capture and storage (CCS) capacity reached 77 facilities last year, removing 64 million tonnes of CO₂—just over one-thousandth of the world’s 38 billion tonnes in annual emissions.

“That’s still far below what’s needed,” said Lina Lefstad, a sustainability researcher at Lund University. “We’re starting from almost zero compared to the 1 billion tonnes per year the International Energy Agency says we’ll need by 2030.”

More than 700 CCS projects are proposed worldwide, but experts warn even that would cover only half the required capacity. Many investors remain hesitant due to high costs and volatile carbon pricing.

In Sweden, the market for captured CO₂ as a raw material is limited, with uses including beverage carbonation, greenhouse fertilisation, pH regulation in pools, industrial blasting, and food refrigeration. Some projects also convert CO₂ into synthetic fuels like e-methanol, though these involve hundreds of thousands of tonnes—far less than total capture targets.