UK: Leading Carbon Capture Project Dropped
The British government has short-listed four carbon-capture and storage (CCS) projects in a £1bn competition to develop technology to capture and permanently store emissions from fossil fuel power plants before they enter the atmosphere and have them piped to storage deep under sea or ground.
The four projects were selected from a list of eight candidatee after an evaluation process that examined deliverability, value for money, and the government's aim of creating a UK CCS industry in the 2020s.
The selected projects are the Peterhead project in Scotland backed by Shell and UK energy group SSE, who plan to retrofit part of the existing gas power station to capture CO2 emissions after combustion; the Captain Clean Energy project in Grangemouth, Scotland backed by a consortium of Siemens, National Grid Summit Power and Petrofac; the Teesside Low Carbon Project that includes GDF Suez; and the Drax coal power station site in North Yorkshire led by Alstom.
Energy Sectreatary Edward Davey said: "The projects we have chosen to take forward have all shown that they have the potential to kick-start the creation of a new CCS industry in the UK, but further discussions are needed to ensure we deliver value-for-money for taxpayers. They have the potential to kick-start the creation of a new CCS industry in the UK
The Don Valley project, which topped the EU’s published list of eight potential recipients for funding this past July, was surprisingly not chosen. The South Korean backed project which had already been awarded €180m by the EU, would have seen a new power plant at Stainforth, South Yorkshire, where CO2 would be transported for storage under the North Sea.
The UK had been given until the end of October to confirm that it would provide funding to CCS companies in order to be eligible to receive a share of a separate pool of €1.5bn in EU funding. However, the Energy Ministry has decided that UK competition winners will not be determined until some point in 2013, pending further examination.
The four projects will now enter into negotiations with the government.