October 4, 2024

expert reaction to govt pledge of £21.7bn for carbon capture projects

Scientists comment on a government pledge of £21.7bn for carbon capture projects. 

Dr Steve Smith, Associate Professor in Greenhouse Gas Removal and Executive Director of CO2RE Hub and Oxford Net Zero, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, said:

“This is excellent news. CCS is one of the crucial parts in the whole jigsaw that makes up a clean, green UK for the future. It’s not an alternative to better home insulation, renewables, electric cars and the like; it’s an additional requirement if we are serious about the climate.

“Only one of the eight CCS projects being funded in this investment is a gas power station. The rest will capture carbon from a wide variety of industrial processes such as cement, energy from waste, and hydrogen production. This shows that CCS isn’t – and shouldn’t – just be a narrow get-out for fossil fuels. It’s building the infrastructure and jobs to support industries and other carbon removal technologies that will be vital for decades to come.”

Dr Mike Stephenson, Director of Stephenson Geoscience Consulting Ltd, said:

“The UK Government’s pledge of £21.7bn for carbon capture projects is an affirmation of Britain’s lead in CCS and the seriousness with which it takes the problem of climate change, but also of the need to maintain an industrial base. The government also recognises the importance of selling the technology to communities in terms of the jobs it will encourage, the financial value of the service it might provide for other European emitters, and the chance to export some of Britain’s expertise in CCS.

“However, the progress of CCS across the world overall is much slower in many emerging economies with large resources of fossil fuels, relatively new coal power plants with long lives ahead of them, and scenarios that suggest rapid energy demand growth and industrialisation. If these economies industrialise without emissions control of one kind or another we may end up with continued rises in emissions anyway. The nightmare scenario is enormous sums of money spent on the CCS ambitions of slow-growing, already-decarbonising, developed economies, but high atmospheric CO2. Wouldn’t it be better if some of this large sum of money could be spent on encouraging and facilitating industrial emissions reduction in areas will that really need it?”

Prof Martin Blunt FREng FRS, Professor of Flow in Porous Media at Imperial College London, said:

“It is excellent news that the Government is finally committing to large-scale carbon capture and storage in the UK.  This is a vital technology, already well-established at hundreds of sites around the world, that makes a vital contribution to decarbonising industry.  By 2030 there is every expectation that the UK will be a leader in this technology and, in combination with increased renewable electricity, on a viable pathway to net zero by 2050.”

Prof Jon Gibbins, Professor of Power Plant Engineering and Carbon Capture at the University of Sheffield, and Director of the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Community (UKCCSRC), said:

“The Government has announced strategic investments that will support the key enablers for future CCS cost reduction: shared CO2 transport and storage systems and the initial capture projects that are essential for ‘learning by doing’.  The UK CCS Research Community Network is already active in ensuring that the country gets the best possible value for money out of this large amount of public support by applying the knowledge gained as quickly and effectively as possible in the many follow-on projects that are being developed, so that CCS can show the same virtuous cycle of deployment and cost reduction as offshore wind has done.”

Prof Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh, said:   

“This is fourth time lucky for CCS in the UK. After 3 false starts on projects with single sources to capture CO2, a change of philosophy has produced multiple industrial CO2 capture projects, mutually supporting pipelines feeding into secure geological stores. This ambitious and complex pathway is starting to convert the world’s first nation to industrialise coal use into the world’s first nation to decarbonise industry.

“The UK’s long CCS design journey started in 2005 with an unexpected offer from BP – not accepted by Government, leading to a competition to retrofit coal power electricity not awarded in 2011, then last minute cancellation in 2016 of funding for gas powered capture, and from 2018 a pivot to industrial projects mutually supporting shared pipelines and stores.

“CCS has operated successfully and safely in the Norwegian North Sea since 2006. But the debate between Perfect or Pragmatic on CCS still exercises those commentators and campaigners who prefer to completely escape from fossil fuels. However, hundreds of CO2 injections into geological storage worldwide have been competed with no leakage. But providing energy from adequate supplies of renewable electricity, and electrolysis to make green hydrogen, will not be installed for several decades. CCS provides achievable steps to rapidly decrease emissions at industrial scale, starting a transition into a lower carbon future. This is a revolutionary leap in energy systems.

“Perception of price remains the biggest blockage to routine installation of CCS. But the cost of government subsidy for the first projects will be spread between across the national energy system – equivalent to a fraction of penny each kilowatt hour.  At full decarbonisation, CCS will cost around 15 pence per litre of petrol – much less than annual market price variations, and affordable.

“Anticipating successful CCS operating projects, the UK government now needs to plan future CCS projects to operate without government grant support. Existing policies are mis-directed to pay for permissions to emit. What is needed for the future is a payment reward for storage of CO2. That can be achieved by an extended obligation on oil company suppliers of fossil carbon to capture and store CO2 emissions arising from their products. That principle was legally established for development of new oilfields in the UK Supreme Court ‘Finch’ case in June 2024.”

Declared interests

Stuart Haszeldine is not funded by hydrocarbon companies or CCS developers supported by government

Martin Blunt: “I receive funding from the oil industry to work on topics related to the energy transition.”

Jon Gibbins: “No direct interests in any of the CCS projects that will be supported (or any others).  As a professor working in the field of CCS and director of the UKCCSRC it is likely that UK CCS deployment generally will lead to extra opportunities for me related to research work and advice.”

Mike Stephenson: “I’m doing CCS consultancy and training globally through my one-man consultancy company . I’m paid to do this.”

No others received.