U.K. Defends Scrapping Carbon Capture Funding

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has defended his government's scrapping of vital funding for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects by claiming the technology was "not working."

Speaking before a House of Commons Liaison Committee, Cameron argued that previous governments had "poured money into these new technologies" with limited results. Asked why his government had scrapped its £1 billion ($1.5 billion) in promised funding, Cameron answered: "At the moment, it seems to me that with carbon capture and storage, while I completely believe in the idea, the technology is not working. CCS is £1 billion of capital expenditure, £1 billion that we could spend on flood defences, schools or the health service. Even after you've spent that £1 billion, that doesn't give you CCS that is competitive in the market. The government hoped the costs would come down. But they did not."

He added: "CCS would still cost £170 [$242] per megawatt hour. That compares with nuclear energy costing £90 [$128], or onshore wind costing £70 [$100]...we are confident that the mix we have committed to in gas, nuclear and renewables."

At a previous Liaison Committee meeting a year earlier, Cameron described CCS technology as "absolutely crucial if we are going to decarbonise effectively".

The government's sudden u-turn in December threw into doubt the future of its two leading CCS projects at the Drax coal-fired plant in Selby, England and the gas-fired Peterhead plant in Scotland. For additional information, see December 2, 2015, article - U.K. Cancels Funding for Carbon Capture Projects.

Stuart Haszeldine, head of the Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage, the largest CCS research group in the U.K., commented: "While the U.K. Government has cancelled its CCS prize, they still have a clear option to fund the first CCS projects through a higher price on electricity that would add just £20 [$28] per megawatt hour. The delivery of commercial-scale CCS in the U.K. has to start somewhere, and expecting the first-phase projects to fund the development of infrastructure as well as capture technology is rather like expecting the first household with a gas cooker to pay £500 million [$713 million] for the start-up gas network. Additional costs relating to quality and safety must surely be shared in order to help developers get the first projects off the ground and then begin to see costs fall through learning and experience. The U.K. must regain its low-carbon agenda before it loses ten years worth of development and reputation as a leading voice in climate change action".

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