Energy Secretary Ed Davey has reaffirmed the Coalition Government's commitment to supporting Carbon Capture and Storage(CCS) in a speech on the emerging technology.
In his first engagement on CCS since coming to office, the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary said the UK has the chance to lead the world on CCS.
The launch of the Government’s CCS competition is expected in the next few weeks and Mr Davey said that he was looking forward to working with industry to deliver the carbon-scrubbing vision for into reality.
Speaking following CCS Industry Day, the Energy Secretary said today: “Since I first read about the technology back in 2005 I’ve held the view that carbon capture and storage is crucial to a low carbon future for our planet.
“It could transform mankind’s relationship with fossil fuels. Once demonstrated it will have national and international ramifications for how we power our economies with clean secure energy for decades to come.
“The UK has the chance to lead the world in CCS and the Government is backing its commitment with £1 billion. We want to work with industry to deliver a new, vibrant CCS programme by the 2020s that helps deliver our low carbon targets in a realistic and cost-effective way.
“We are fortunate to have many promising proposals for CCS projects. It was a privilege today to hear of the high level of interest and commitment from industry. I look forward to working with the industry to turn our vision for CCS into reality.”
Lewis Gillies, CEO of 2Co Energy, welcomed Mr Davey's comments and added: “We are delighted the government remains as committed as ever to accelerating development of carbon capture and storage in the UK. We hope the UK competition will champion CCS projects that not only make economic sense but that can make the biggest environmental difference and lay foundations for future projects to benefit from the infrastructure they create.
“Our Don Valley Power Project will generate enough new clean power to heat and light a million UK homes, create hundreds of new jobs and drive major investment in parts of the UK that need it most, like Yorkshire and Scotland.”
2Co Energy’s 650MW (net) Don Valley Power Project is widely regarded as one of Europe’s most advanced CCS projects and was awarded its planning permission in 2009. The UK project has already won an EU grant of €180 million and is competing for additional funding in the EU’s NER300 competition.
The Don Valley Power Project’s business model is more accurately a Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (CCUS) project which centres on the vast CO2 storage reservoirs and additional oil recovery potential under the North Sea.
It plans to pipe the captured CO2 offshore to depleted UK oil fields and use it to recover millions of barrels of ‘hard to reach’ oil. This process of injecting CO2 is known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and borrows from technology and expertise already widely deployed in North America.
Globally, the majority of CCS projects in operation or under construction are currently linked to EOR. The process not only would extend the life of the UK’s North Sea oil reserves by more than 20 years but it would also allow the Government to recover billions of pounds of additional oil tax revenue from the North Sea.
This is a major plus for the UK economy as well as the environment and dramatically cuts the UK’s costs of pioneering carbon capture technology. In fact, EOR makes low carbon electricity from CCS cost-competitive with other forms of new and conventional energy.
By creating a valuable market for CO2 in the North Sea and bringing down infrastructure costs, the Don Valley Power Project hopes to transport and store CO2 from other local power generators and industrial emitters, sparking a “Humber Cluster” of additional CCS projects in a region that currently contributes over 10 per cent of the UK’s annual emissions.
Lewis Gillies said: “Cleaning up the UK’s coal-fired energy supply comes at a cost, but we believe our game-changing model of CCUS can balance the books, boost energy security, and can make the UK a world leader in this new low carbon industry sector.”
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