Humber Zero: decarbonising an industrial cluster

Decarbonisation and the journey to Net Zero by 2050 is not incompatible with heavy industry which has found a saviour in technology seemingly dismissed by a former chancellor of the exchequer.

In 2012 funds worth £1bn were ring-fenced by David Cameron’s coalition government to fast-track the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Two bids - Shell and SSE’s CCS scheme at Peterhead and Capture Power Ltd’s White Rose project at Drax Power station – looked set to move forward until funding was removed by George Osborne in November 2015.

Step forward to 2018 and a report titled: ‘Clean Growth: The UK Carbon Capture Usage and Storage deployment pathway’ in which Claire Perry, former MP and minister of state for energy and clean growth, said: ‘If we are to enjoy the benefits of a broad and thriving industrial base in the second half of the century, CCUS gives us credible routes to decarbonise the processes that underpin many of these sectors. The main barriers now are not technological: rather, government and the sector need to work together to build the frameworks to enable CCUS to deploy at scale.’