Carbon Capture and Storage Offer New Green Industry for U.K.

The United Kingdom has the capacity to develop new green industries for capturing harmful carbon dioxide emissions from industry and storing them deep underground, but more investment is needed to further develop the relevant technologies and infrastructure. These conclusions are outlined in two recent briefing papers published by the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.

Nicholas Florin and Paul Fennell wrote the Grantham Institute paper on carbon capture technology. Florin is an Imperial College junior research fellow, while Fennell heads Imperial College’s Energy Engineering group. Martin Blunt authored the paper on CO2 storage. He is head of the Imperial College’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering.

Carbon capture and storage (CSS) technologies are designed to trap and transport carbon dioxide (CO2) from industry, via pipelines, and store it in offshore underground reservoirs. CCS technology has been used extensively in the oil industry to recover fossil fuels from reserves and trap waste emissions in rock. However, CCS has never been used on a large scale to capture emissions from industry and power plants.

The briefing paper authors say that the U.K. is in a unique position to develop CCS on a large scale. It has extensive oil industry expertise and a concentration of industries along the coast that are close to depleted offshore oil and gas reservoirs, which can store CO2.

A large-scale CCS network could be built along the east coast of the U.K., the authors note. This would use a pipeline network to carry CO2 from industries to local storage facilities called hubs, which would pump the gas onwards to offshore underground reservoirs.

Humberside in the north of England is one place where a CCS network could work effectively, say the authors. Humberside has several existing power stations that emit 60 megatonnes of CO2 per year. A pipeline network could pump emissions to hubs based in Humberside and on to underground reservoirs in the Southern North Sea.

The authors say more research needs to be done to improve current technologies for capturing CO2 so they use less energy and are more economical to run. The researchers say that the UK government and industry needs to invest more money in research and development, and governments will also need to develop credible policies and regulatory frameworks.

Related: Funding Announced for Carbon Capture and Storage R&D Projects

Photo: Sierra Club/Flickr

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