“It is an unproven technology, certainly in this country. And we are concerned this policy is going to have a very significant effect on consumers’ and industry’s electricity bills,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, a cross-party group of MPs which scrutinises public spending.
The government said that it would formally respond to the committee, but that CCUS was a “necessity not an option” for reaching its climate goals.
It said in a statement that this type of technology would make Britain’s energy system secure, something that would lower electricity costs and bills.
The UK has a target to reach “net zero” – meaning no longer adding to the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, by 2050. As the country switches to renewable energy and away from fossil fuels for heating homes and running cars, greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide, also known as CO2, will fall.
But a small amount of gas will still need to be used to maintain electricity supply and there are some industries such as cement where there are few green alternatives. Carbon capture could prevent the CO2 produced by these processes from entering the atmosphere – and the government has bet achieving its climate goals on it.
Both the UK’s independent climate watchdog and the UN’s climate science body, the IPCC, agree that CCUS will be needed if countries want to reach net zero and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
By 2050, the government wants carbon capture and storage to prevent the emitting of 50 million tonnes of CO2 – more than 10% of what the country currently releases – and has committed £21.7bn to achieving this goal.
The funding, announced in October, will go towards clusters of carbon capture projects in Merseyside and Teesside, which it said would create thousands of jobs and attract private investment.
Dr Stuart Jenkins, research fellow at the University of Oxford, pushed back on the committee’s assessment of the technology.
“I really don’t like the phrase “unproven” technology, it is not representative of the status of the technology as an engineering problem,” he said.
Although there are no commercial CCUS sites in the UK, there are 45 commercial facilities already operating globally capturing around 50 million tonnes of CO2, and there are more than 700 being proposed or developed, according to the International Energy Agency, external.
But Dr Jenkins did agree with the Public Accounts Committee that there were questions about whether the government’s current funding model was sustainable.
The committee have recommended that the full financial impact of the programme on consumers be properly assessed, taking account of cost-of-living pressures.
Source:
www.bbc.com
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