The UK is pledging up to $28.5 billion for carbon capture projects

Britain will provide up to $28.5 billion in funding over 25 years to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to reduce emissions from power, industry and hydrogen production in northern England, the government announced on Friday (October 4).

The UK has set a climate target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and has stated that CCS will be needed to reduce emissions from energy-intensive industrial sectors as well as create jobs.

“This breakthrough technology will deliver 4,000 good jobs and billions in private investment to communities across Merseyside and Teesside,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said in a statement.

CCS involves capturing emissions from power plants and industry so they can be stored underground. The technology has been available for years, but projects around the world have failed due to high costs and questions about how much carbon dioxide is captured.

The UK’s Conservative government, which was ousted from office in July, promised £20 billion (A$34.1 billion) of CCS funding in 2023, which was never fully delivered.

The government said the two plants in northern England will have a combined annual carbon capture capacity of 8.5 million tonnes per year, the equivalent of taking 4 million cars off the road.

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The HyNet North West cluster in Merseyside seeks to capture emissions from industrial plants and store them in depleted gas fields in the Irish Sea. It is being developed by a consortium led by the Italian energy group Eni.

“HyNet… will decarbonize one of the key energy-intensive industrial districts and also unlock significant economic growth in this region of the UK,” Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said in a statement.

Major oil and gas companies Equinor and BP are involved in developing a project on Teesside that would store captured emissions under the North Sea.

Green groups criticized this decision.

“For a government committed to tackling the climate crisis, £22 billion is a lot of money to spend on something that will extend the life of producing the oil and gas that heats the planet,” said Doug Parr, policy director of Greenpeace UK. REUTERS