Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
5/15/2015
Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy voted last week in favor of a draft report on the European Energy Security Strategy containing language in support of carbon capture and storage. The document includes two compromise amendments addressing CCS, one that calls for actions to be taken to improve conditions for the deployment of the technology and one the calls for increased support toward improving CSS technology. The action was applauded by Norwegian environmental group Bellona in a release this week. “With this vote, European politicians are asking for more concrete steps on delivering CCS. Especially welcome are the [requests] for both improved conditions for CCS deployment and funding provisions. We look forward to seeing this being followed up,” Bellona Europa Director Jonas Helseth said in the release.
The amendments call not only for policy support for CCS, but also financial support. The technology, being in its first generation of demonstration, is costly and the lawmakers recognize in the draft report that government funding will be essential in getting the technology to maturity. “It is necessary to improve existing technologies for CCS, CCU and highly efficient and highly flexible power plants, and to develop new energy technologies taking into account the technology neutrality approach allowing Member States to fully exploit their indigenous energy resources, using funds from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation; therefore funding foreseen for Horizon 2020 regulation should be ensured and protected from any future cuts,” the report says. The Horizon 2020 program is a research and innovation program with the potential to supply €80 billion in funding by 2020.
