The Government has pledged nearly £22bn for carbon capture and storage projects in a move that has united sceptics and alarmists in condemnation of the expensive and unproven technology. BBC News has more.
The Government said the funding for two “carbon capture clusters” on Merseyside and Teesside, promised over the next 25 years, would create thousands of jobs, attract private investment and help the U.K. meet climate goals.
Sir Keir Starmer, who is to visiting the north-west of England with Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to confirm the projects, said the move would “reignite our industrial heartlands” and “kickstart growth”.
But some green campaigners have said the investment would “extend the life of planet-heating oil and gas production”.
Carbon capture and storage facilities aim to prevent carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from industrial processes and power stations from being released into the atmosphere.
Most of the CO2 produced is captured, transported, and then stored deep underground.
It is seen by the likes of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Climate Change Committee as a key element in meeting targets to cut the greenhouse gases driving dangerous climate change.
Despite Miliband first announcing plans to develop carbon capture projects for power plants in 2009 during the last Labour government, little progress has been made since in the UK.
Speaking at a glassmaking factory in Cheshire, Sir Keir said: “For our energy intensive industries like glassmaking here, or cement, or steel, or ceramics, you are familiar with these, the security that the future belongs to them.
“That the necessary mission of decarbonisation does not mean de-industrialisation. This if you like, is the politics of national renewal in action.”
Speaking to the Today programme, Miliband said the project was “essential if we are to decarbonise without deindustrialising”. …
James Richardson, acting Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee, said: “It’s fantastic to see funding coming through for these big projects.”
However Greenpeace U.K.’s Policy Director, Doug Parr called for spending instead on offshore wind or nationwide home insulation.
He said £22bn was “a lot of money to… extend the life of planet-heating oil and gas production.”
The Guardian cites further critics of the “high risk and not future proof” plans:
Lorenzo Sani, an analyst at Carbon Tracker, a climate thinktank, told the Guardian the Government’s decision “repeats the mistakes of the previous administration” by committing new funding without first reassessing its CCS strategy.
Sani said the plan “remains anchored in outdated and overly optimistic [cost] assumptions”, which risk “squandering even more taxpayer money on carbon capture projects that are both high risk and not future proof”.
Dr. Andrew Boswell, an independent researcher into the CCS industry, dismissed the investment as a “massive giveaway to the fossil fuel industry” and a “bad decision” for bills, energy security and the planet.
Even George Monbiot is against it, calling it “absolute madness” and blaming “lobbying by fossil fuel companies”.
This is absolute madness. Carbon capture and storage has failed time and again. Labour has slashed reliable green programmes, to pour vast sums of our money into a complete crock. The only possible explanation is lobbying by fossil fuel companies.
— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) October 4, 2024https://t.co/GCyad2C3N4
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