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£1bn blow for North's plan to capture CO2 under sea
PLANS for a world-leading £30bn scheme to capture two-thirds of the region's CO2 emissions and store them under the North Sea have suffered a blow after missing out on up to £1bn of Government funding.
Officials from Yorkshire Forward said it was "bewildering" the Government had excluded the scheme from a four-strong shortlist in a competition for funding for a carbon capture and storage project.
They said they were "deeply disappointed" the scheme – which could have cut Britain's carbon emissions by gathering greenhouse gases from 18 power stations and industrial sites around the Humber and piping them under the sea – was not on the shortlist announced by Business Secretary John Hutton yesterday. They pledged yesterday to seek international investors so the project can still go ahead.
They are still seeking an explanation of why the trailblazing scheme missed out.
Yorkshire Forward chief executive Tom Riordan said: "We are bitterly disappointed by this decision. It is bewildering that a bid that could potentially deliver up to 10 per cent cuts in the UK's carbon emissions has not even been shortlisted.
"Carbon capture in Yorkshire and Humber will happen. I still believe it is the most obvious site in Europe given the proximity of our coal-fired power stations and the potential storage sites in the depleted gas fields of the North Sea.
"We will be regrouping and I will be asking my team to start the process of approaching international investors over the coming months."
The project, which would create hundreds of jobs and boost the region's economy by 1.2bn a year, would see carbon dioxide from power stations and manufacturing plants collected, liquified and piped into empty gas fields under the North Sea from plants around the Humber estuary
to stop the greenhouse gas escaping into the atmosphere.
Yorkshire Forward was leading the project, which also involves major companies including Corus, Scottish and Southern Energy, Powerfuel Power Ltd, BP, ConocoPhillips, E.ON UK, Shell and Drax Power.
Drax power station, near Selby, which produces 22.8m tonnes of carbon a year, and the plants at nearby Eggborough and Killingholme in North Lincolnshire would all be included in the scheme, which would dwarf other carbon capture projects in Canada and California and reduce the region's emissions from 90m tonnes to just 30m. It had been hoped the first phase could be operational by 2014, although it could take up to 20 years for the full network to be running, connecting 18 sites including power stations, steel and chemical works in a 40-mile area round the Humber.
Installing the pipe structure would cost about 2bn, although the entire scheme – including all the infrastructure, pollution control and carbon capture technology – will reach 30bn.
Nine projects had been entered into the Government's Carbon Capture and Storage demonstrator competition to secure up to 1bn, but only four schemes made it to the shortlist.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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