By Professor Stuart Haszeldine – SCCS Director & Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage, The University of Edinburgh
A green industrial strategy for Scotland is a very welcome vision. Scotland has immense opportunities to grow from a fossil fuel economy into a clean and green energy provider of wind power, electricity, and low carbon hydrogen. These new industries will adapt skilled workers and create wealth for many decades to come. And Scotland can offer huge quantities of exceptionally secure carbon storage to assist our European neighbours to decarbonise.
The Scottish Government sees carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) as one of the top five areas of strength and opportunity for Scotland to compete in the global transition to net zero. As European mandates rapidly increase the demand for CO2 storage, this is an opportunity for Scotland to help the established offshore oil industry transition to a new business of storing as much carbon as it produces each year - aligned with the recent United Kingdom Supreme Court judgements.
With timely government support through licensing and regulation, Scotland can become a centre for a broader green economy. These projects are being built now across Europe, creating new opportunities for construction and service companies. And abundant CO2 storage is available now beneath the seabed around Scotland. And carbon capture is being applied now in Scotland on agriculture and distilling. And low carbon hydrogen and electricity is being created now to infill variable wind power. Carbon management has arrived. Scotland needs only to grasp the prize.
If Scotland is not yet ready to build and strengthen the economy in the transition from fossil fuels, lessons have not been learned from the externally driven closures of Linwood and Bathgate car manufacturing, Ravenscraig steel, Cockenzie and Longannet coal power. And now Grangemouth refinery. Looking back, why did Scotland not already have a long conversation concluded with INEOS to create a transition of mutual benefit? Perhaps by redeploying the established skilled people to make bio-refinery products; and promoting the CCUS opportunity for Grangemouth to become a low carbon cluster of new industries? "But you know our sense of timing. We always wait too long”. A conversation about the future of Grangemouth petrochemicals must be introduced. And Mossmorran too, on borrowed time and fading North Sea hydrocarbons. The opportunity is clear. It's only a matter of timing.
