UK Government moves decisively to accelerate CCS

The UK Government has moved decisively to accelerate carbon capture and storage (CCS) and turn the UK into a global leader in this important field. It has today announced support for eight projects to join its first two clusters and launched the process for development of two more clusters. These actions, together with the £20bn in support for CCS announced in the Spring Budget, put it on track to achieve its long-stated goal to have four operational CCS clusters by 2030 and to be storing up to 30m tonnes of CO₂ a year by then.

“Guarantees of £20bn provide confidence for tens of commercial investors, partnering in multiple projects, to build a climate-saving CO₂ storage ambition unequalled in the world. Two current project groupings will be expanded. And two new Track 2 groupings are launched for competitive bidding,” said Professor Stuart Haszledine, chair of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh. 

Acorn in Scotland and Viking in Humberside are specifically invited to enter bidding negotiations leading a second wave of Track 2 CCS cluster projects, with a deadline set for 28 April. This follows the selection of East Coast Teesside and HyNet Merseyside as the first two Track 1 clusters in October 2021.

The greatly accelerated process for Track 2 will be supervised by the new UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). The tight deadline leaves just four weeks for additional new bidders, who must already be on a pathway to acquiring a CO₂ storage licence and have the ability to link by pipeline to CO₂ sources. Both projects have to demonstrate that storage will exceed 10MtCO2/yr by 2030. That will extend industry decarbonisation along the entire east coast, which could create options for shipping delivery of CO₂ captured from elsewhere in UK or, in time, from other countries.

SCCS welcomes the scale of ambition in today’s announcements. Carbon capture and geological storage is an essential technology to decrease future carbon emissions from industry, and enable recapture and storage of CO₂ greenhouse gases from historical and future hard-to-catch dispersed emissions. CCS is proven in full-scale North Sea and offshore operations since 1996.

“CCS is a tens of million tonnes CO₂ remedy, appropriate to a millions of tonnes CO₂ problem,” said Professor Haszledine.

However, the UK Government also specifies that the UK will continue to issue new oil and gas exploration and production licenses, prompting accusations of using CCS as a cover for continued emissions.

Professor Haszeldine said: “The Government is trying to ride a green industrial CCS horse and a black oil and gas stallion simultaneously, making this a long overdue start to carbon clean up, but an incomplete carbon transition.”

Once it has selected its Track 2 cluster candidates, it must also accelerate their development much faster than Track 1 through assessment and planning because these Track 2 UK investors have already been designing their projects since 2015, then on hold since 2021.

“Attractive CCS opportunities are emerging globally in the USA, Denmark and Norway. The UK is now in a race to keep the best global talent and to grow project numbers fast enough to create world leading industries which can design and supply this new immense offshore opportunity globally,” said Prof Haszeldine.

“Can follow-on projects be rapidly consented and licensed for commercial investment? Planning and pace need to match what the UK did during the North Sea 1990s oil boom which transformed industrial investment.”

Projects continuing to development in Track 1 do not include bioenergy projects at Drax and Lynemouth power plants which both import wood pellets, although these will be invited into Track 1 + negotiations later this year. Both projects are capable of providing “negative emissions” to recapture emitted CO₂, but need to pass strict sustainability criteria.

Industrial projects approved to start construction accelerate a welcome spread of CCS technologies including BP’s gas-fuelled electricity with CCS and hydrogen generation at Teesside East Coast. Connecting to Merseyside HyNet are five projects including hydrogen production, two on cement, two on energy-from-waste recycling.

East Coast Cluster

• Net Zero Teesside Power
• bpH2Teesside
• Teesside Hydrogen CO₂ Capture

HyNet Cluster

• Hanson Padeswood Cement Works Carbon Capture and Storage Project
• Viridor Runcorn Industrial CCS
• Protos Energy Recovery Facility
• Buxton Lime Net Zero
• HyNet Hydrogen Production Plant 1 (HPP1)