Yorkshire: Clean coal action call by MPs to cash in on exports

Parliament’s backbench Energy and Climate Change Committee says the UK risks being viewed as “all talk and no action” over green issues due to the ongoing delay in getting even a single CCS (carbon capture and storage) project up and running.

In 2008 the Government set aside £1bn to help to fund CCS demonstration projects around the UK, but nearly four years later not a penny has been spent.

Meanwhile Yorkshire is home to three stalled CCS projects – “clean coal” power stations at Hatfield, Selby and North Killingholme – which require significant public subsidies to get them off the ground. All three are hoping to receive funding from the Government’s £1bn pot.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the Parliamentary committee, said there were huge economic benefits to the UK in becoming a world leader in CCS, as the technology will be needed in key export markets such as China.

But he warned the ongoing delay in finalising even a single project means the UK is now at risk of being left behind.

Calling for the current timetable to be accelerated and the first CCS scheme to be in place by 2016, the former Tory Environment Minister said: “The UK’s image is unfortunately in danger of becoming tarnished by a reputation of being more talk than action when it comes to climate change.

“If we want to convince the Chinese they should be doing business with us in this area, we will need to strengthen our brand.

“By demonstrating we can deliver real carbon reductions as well as we deliver climate change rhetoric, we could put UK plc out in front in the low-carbon industrial revolution set to sweep the world and thereby enjoy economic as well as environmental advantages.”

China is seen as a potentially vast export market for low-carbon technologies due to the unrivalled growth anticipated there over the coming decades and the huge challenges it faces in meeting its own CO2-reduction plans.

The committee visited several Chinese cities to discuss sharing knowledge and technologies.

“Many people we met in China noted the UK was still no closer to delivering its own CCS demonstration plant,” their report states.

“Meanwhile, even though there was no initial proposal for projects there, China was now funding a number of projects itself.”

CCS experts in Yorkshire have long been extolling the economic case for developing a region-wide CO2 pipeline network – both to cut the UK’s own carbon emissions, and to create a new industry which can be exported all around the globe.

Dr Stephen Brown, director at consultancy CO2Sense, said: “It’s clear that CCS offers massive potential for jobs and growth.

“But Tim Yeo is right to say that the Government needs to move in a coordinated way, and quickly, to prove that we can turn our expertise into huge and successful engineering projects. Yorkshire is the only location with advanced plans which use the technologies China is most interested in.”

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) reaffirmed its commitment to CCS, but ignored the committee’s call for a new timetable that would see the first project in place by 2016.

A DECC spokesman said: “The Government is absolutely committed to CCS and the UK is poised to be a world leader in this new industry. Our £1bn competition has received significant interest from industry and is on track to deliver a cost-competitive CCS industry by the 2020s.”