WWF Scotland has issued a clear recommendation to the Government as it looks for the right UK site to test carbon capture technology. Having commissioned its own research, WWF Scotland is convinced that basing the planned demonstration project at Longannet power station in Fife is “a no brainer”.
The power sector is currently responsible for more than 30 percent of the UK’s CO2 emissions, around 70 percent of which comes from burning coal, thus presenting a huge challenge to prospects of meeting emission targets and Britain’s aspirations to show global leadership. The Committee on Climate Change recently advised that the Government should aim to ensure that the power sector is almost completely carbon-free by 2030. Achieving this goal, and particularly dealing with the threat of unabated coal stations, is one of the most important contributions the UK could make to tackling climate change globally.
This means there is now very strong interest in developing a new generation of coal-fired power stations.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is widely touted as an option that could play a bridging role in reducing emissions from burning coal and gas in the transition to a truly low-carbon, sustainable energy system. However, the technology has yet to be proven on a commercial scale. The UK Government is therefore holding a competition to fund one demonstration project, and announced in April that it would look to fund a further three projects to test the different technologies.
WWF commissioned IPA Energy + Water Economics to look at the potential impact on CO2 emissions of demonstrating so called post-combustion carbon capture on up to 300MW of the existing 2,400MW subcritical power station at Longannet, and on a new 1,600MW supercritical coal plant (the size of the new power stations proposed at Kingsnorth in Kent and Tilbury in Essex). These plants have all been named as semi-finalists in the planned CCS competition, and the Government has said that it expects demonstrations to be of 300MW net capacity.
The report, ‘Carbon Choices’, concluded that doing the trial at Longannet would be the only choice that would result in reduced emissions overall. In contrast, doing a trial at a new coal-fired power station at Tilbury or Kingsnorth would actually increase emissions.
Dr Richard Dixon, Director of WWF Scotland, said: “The power sector is responsible for more than a third of Scotland’s CO2 emissions, most of it from burning coal. Lord Turner's Committee on Climate Change has said that the power sector should be almost completely carbon-free by 2030. Along with renewables and energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage is likely to be a vital part of delivering low-carbon electricity, both here and abroad. But we need to stop talking and actually get something up and running.”
He added: “The difference between choosing Longannet and any of the other sites could be as much as 55 million tonnes of CO2 over the lifetime of the project, more than all of Scotland’s emissions for a year. Choosing Longannet as the site for this carbon capture demonstration project is a no brainer. The UK Government should stop wasting time and give the go ahead for the trial at Longannet.”
The WWF report shows that if the technology is tested on a purpose-built new coal power station as proposed at Kingsnorth or Tilbury, overall emissions could increase by 32 million tonnes CO2 between 2014 and 2025 - roughly equivalent to running an extra four and a half coal-fired power stations for a year. By comparison, fitting carbon capture to the existing power station at Longannet in Fife would reduce emissions by 14.5 million tonnes of CO2 over the same period - equivalent to turning off two coal-fired power stations for a year.
Post-combustion technology works by capturing the CO2 emissions from the gas stream once the fuel has been burnt. However, emissions can end up in the atmosphere, and technical problems (or claims that full-scale CCS would entail excessive cost) make this an all too plausible outcome. In light of these significant risks, WWF believes that there are more credible ways to accelerate demonstration of CCS while still reducing emissions:
• Post-combustion carbon capture technology can be deployed relatively rapidly on an existing coal plant, such as Longannet, without incurring the risks of high-carbon lock-in to new, large-scale coal investments.
• In parallel, a focus on pre-combustion technology – where new stations could have full-scale CCS from the outset – could also have an immediate beneficial impact on power sector emissions if plants replace more carbon intensive plants.
• In addition to making the right strategic choices in demonstrating carbon capture, there is clearly a need for greater regulatory certainty to prevent lock-in to new, largely unabated, high-carbon infrastructure whilst CCS remains an unproven technology.
WWF Scotland also called on the Scottish Government to establish an Emissions Performance Standard for power stations, similar to that in California. This standard would set a limit on the carbon emissions from power stations and drive new and existing plants towards cleaner operation.
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