GHG Daily
2/8/2016
In the wake of the Conservative Party’s decision to scrap a £1 billion carbon capture and storage commercialization competition, the U.K. Parliament has prepared a report to be published Wednesday on the future of CCS in the nation. The report will be based on testimony received by the Energy and Climate Change Committee during a recent meeting, as well as evidence submitted by experts to a committee inquiry.
In the report, “the Energy and Climate Change Committee explores the impact of the recent decision on investors and the supply chain and looks at the near- and long-term future of carbon capture and storage in the UK,” according to the inquiry.
The U.K. announced on Nov. 25 the official cancellation of the competition, in which two projects remained in the running for £1 billion in funding. According to statements made by government officials since the announcement, the decision was financial and does not reflect a disapproval of the technology.
The U.K. launched the competition in 2012, and a funding decision had been expected in coming months. A week before the CCS competition termination announcement, the U.K. government announced plans to close all unabated coal-fired power plants by 2025, signaling a move to lower-carbon forms of energy. Both CCS projects— Royal Dutch Shell’s Peterhead project in Aberdeenshire, Scotland; and the White Rose CCS Project in Yorkshire, managed by the Capture Power consortium, which would be a new-build coal-fired power plant with CCS — have since been put on hold.
