The UK is getting serious about carbon capture and storage – with the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (logo, pictured) to pour £1billion into direct grant support for capital funding.
Carbon capture and storage allows carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere to be caught and permanently stored underground. Now the UK is looking to reduce the costs and risks associated with carbon capture and storage so it can be cost competitive; while also putting in place the market frameworks needed for it to be deployed in the private sector; and removing the key barriers to its implementation.
The goal of the commercialisation programme is to build carbon capture and storage equipped fossil fuel power stations in the early 2020s without the need for capital subsidies from the Government. It is believed that if carbon capture and storage is to be deployed in the 2020s then final investment decisions will be needed to be made in the early part of that decade.
Now this new programme puts the emphasis on industry to bring forward carbon capture solutions.
To qualify for the competition, projects must include a power plant and capture facility located in Great Britain and a storage site off-shore; must be operational by 2016-2020; and may be full-chain or part-chain.
In addition, the DECC also published the first ever UK carbon capture and storage roadmap that sets out the steps the Government is taking to be an industry leader.
