Funding carbon capture an ‘urgent priority’

The CCS Forum report urged policy-makers and governments to avoid focusing on the near-term targets at the detriment of long-term goals, and make deployment of CCS an “urgent priority”.

The forum comprises experts from academia, industry, and government, and is supported by a number of organisations including the Institution of Chemical Engineers’ (IChemE) Energy Centre and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Our report represents the views of leading CCS experts from around the world; including power and industry, capture, utilisation, transport and storage, and identifies the key research and development needs for this area for the coming decade

Niall Mac Dowell, clean energy researcher at Imperial College London

The report said that to achieve the limits of up to 2^oC global warming set out in the Paris Agreement, 120-160 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) would have to be stored until 2050.

Its findings showed that while the reservoirs to store these already existed, there was still an urgent need to fund the technological development of the process, by making it more attractive to investors and government decision-makers.

The report comes after significant cuts to CCS were made by the UK government at the end of last year, including scrapping a ring-fenced budget of £1bn.

"The ambitious targets set by COP21 in Paris are only feasible with the large scale deployment of CCS technology,” said Niall Mac Dowell, lead author of the report, and clean energy researcher at Imperial College London.

“Our report represents the views of leading CCS experts from around the world; including power and industry, capture, utilisation, transport and storage, and identifies the key research and development needs for this area for the coming decade.”

A recent study published by Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage (SCCS) found that a focus on delivering shared transport and storage infrastructure could greatly reduce the cost of achieving deep cuts in the UK’s carbon emissions.

Its analysis showed how reusing existing natural gas pipelines, which pass close to centres of industrial activity, could reduce the cost of transporting captured carbon dioxide (CO2) to geological storage sites already identified offshore. 

The SCCS study suggested that Scotland’s legacy of gas pipelines could provide a way to reduce the capital cost of CO2 transport from clusters of large-point sources, such as power plants, refineries and chemical and cement manufacturers.

In addition, it said the North Sea had the largest and best understood CO2 storage capacity in Europe, and had been shown to be ready for commercial development by recent projects.

“Our study shows that it is possible to capture and transport significant amounts of CO2 from industrial clusters in Scotland right now, with known technology and by converting existing infrastructure," said Peter Brownsort, lead author of the study and SCCS scientific research officer.

“The presence of existing pipelines, both on and offshore, available for reuse can bring direct savings to CCS projects. This unique advantage, combined with the huge CO2 storage potential in the Central North Sea, makes a strong case for initiating a CO2 capture cluster and transport network in Scotland.”