A new national Carbon Capture and Storage company should be established to pick up the pieces of a shattered sector following the shock UK Government decision to withdraw a £1billion ring-fenced capital budget, according to an industry expert.
Carbon capture in the UK has been hung out to dry by the Cameron Government via some chancellor’s Autumn Statement fine print issued by the Department of Energy & Climate Change.
The UK Government is axing its £1 billion competition to develop “carbon capture and storage” technology on power stations, including Peterhead.
Oil major Shell has opened a landmark new CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) project in Canada. The new Quest facility at the Athabasca Oil Sands project is designed to capture, transport and store more than one million tonnes of carbon dioxide CO2 each year. The amount is equivalent to the emissions from an estimated 250,000 cars.
The £1billion Peterhead Carbon Capture and Storage project can help kick-start other CCS projects in the UK and make a significant contribution to reducing CO2, according to a leading industry expert.
Capture Power said it would retain its commitment to the delivery of the White Rose Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project after one of the consortium members pulled out. Drax said it was pulling out of the major scheme to develop technology to store emissions amid concerns over Government green policy changes. The company blamed the “drastically different financial and regulatory environment” which has seen the wholesale price of electricity drop and moves by the Government to rein back support for low carbon technology.
The UK’s Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has chosen a consortium led by north-east consultancy Pale Blue Dot Energy to identify future potential carbon dioxide (CO2) storage sites beneath the North Sea. The 12-month project is being delivered by the ETI and funded with up to £2.5million from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The aim is to identify five credible carbon capture and storage sites on the UK Continental Shelf. It will progress the appraisal of selected storage sites towards readiness for “final investment decisions”, de-risking these stores for potential future storage developers. The institute says the project will make use of CO2 Stored – the UK’s CO2 storage atlas – which was created from the ETI’s UK Storage Appraisal Project.