Due to what it says are unfavourable economic conditions, energy giant E.ON will not proceed to the next stage of the UK government’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition.
The news came as the government published the outcome of its spending review, confirming that it would provide £1bn in capital expenditure for the first commercial-scale CCS demonstration project.
E.ON’s Kingsnorth project was one of just two schemes shortlisted as part of the government’s CCS demonstration competition. But, with the market still not conducive to building a 1,600MW supercritical power station on which to build a carbon-capture demonstration scheme, the company said that it had become clear that Kingsnorth could not meet the project timetable.
Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK, said that the company still believed that carbon capture and storage was a vital technology in the fight against climate change, and would now concentrate its efforts on its Maasvlakte project in the Netherlands. He added that the lessons it learns from that project could be brought back to the UK for future-generation CCS projects.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Power consortium remains committed to the carbon-capture and storage project at Longannet, and is on schedule with its front-end engineering and design work.
’We would obviously also wish Scottish Power well as it looks to develop its own project,’ said Dr Golby.
For its part, E.ON is currently undertaking a front-end engineering and design study at the Kingsnorth project and still aims to complete this to gather valuable information on CCS that could be shared more widely.
The existing Kingsnorth power station is due to close by the end of 2015 at the latest under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive.
Good decision: CCS is a technological folly. I, for one, do not want to subsidise via my utility bills a technology that can’t and won’t ever work.
Robert, I have no knowledge or prejudice on the technological aspects of CCS. Please can you enlighten as to why it can’t work.
Thanks in anticipation.
I believe this is rather unfortunate. Contrary to Robert’s comments, CCS has been proven to work in pilots. If he thinks we can get off of coal and natural gas and get cheaper sources of energy, he should get prepared to climb in a tree, huddle with the other non-believers, and eat nuts.
I’m not sure of Robert’s source, but I did find this http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/27/quote-of-the-week-36-carbon-sequestrations-fatal-flaw/
However, the majority of the articles I’ve read say that it’s more likely to be financially non-viable. For example,
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticlepaged/articleid/4483979/pageid/1
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/09/carbon-capture-storage-test-france
both give a reasoned assessment of this nascent technological approach to CO2 sequestration.
I apologise for having made such a terse statement. However, I stand by what I said, because CCS is based on a faulty premise – namely, that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It isn’t. Thus, any engineering attempt to tackle global warming by means of CCS will be a technological folly.
Similarly, the Coalition Government’s definition of ‘clean coal’ is flawed. For decades the Americans have clean coal technology that can be used in Britain to contribute to energy security and independence.
A more environmentally correct and scientifically accurate definition of ‘clean coal’ is one that does not pollute the environment. Sulphur compounds do pollute, both in themselves, and when they are dissolved in water and fall as acid rain; carbon dioxide doesn’t. CO2 is essential for life on Earth. It is one of the two main building blocks of all plant life that exists and has ever existed on Earth.
CO2 is a minor – yes, minor – greenhouse gas. Thus, any attempt to reduce it is technological, scientific, political, and economic folly.