Complexity and expense overshadow UK’s carbon capture strategy

In December 2023 the UK outlined its CCUS strategy, which aims to capture 20-30 million tonnes of C02 per annum by 2030. Backed by £20bn in taxpayer funding, the strategy was based on the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee in its Sixth Carbon Budget in December 2020.

According to Carbon Tracker, cost estimates for deploying CCUS have since more than doubled, while the need for carbon capture could be diminished as the need for gas plants with CCUS could be one-third of earlier estimates due to the growth of renewables, battery storage and flexible technologies.

The think tank found that the UK is targeting applications where CCUS could lock consumers into a high-cost and fossil-based future, despite cleaner and cheaper alternatives coming online.

Carbon Tracker argued that plans to use CCUS to decarbonise steel production and gas-fired power plants should be abandoned as cleaner alternatives for both applications look viable; Tata Steel and British Steel are moving away from plans to install CCUS at their UK facilities in favour of Electric Arc Furnaces, while hydrogen turbines are likely to be cheaper sources of flexible power generation than gas-CCS plants by 2030.