At first glance, Denmark’s flagship carbon capture and storage tender looks like a disappointment. A €4 billion subsidy scheme designed to catalyse a competitive CCS market ended with just one remaining bidder. Nine out of ten pre-qualified applicants walked away. Targets will not be fully met. Headlines quickly followed, framing the outcome as a failure. That interpretation is understandable. It is also incomplete. What happened in Denmark is less a policy collapse than a reality check. The tender exposed the gap between political ambition…