Government carbon capture plans fail to add up - Conservatives

Conservatives today criticised the vagueness of the funding mechanism proposed by Government to kick-start up to four Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects.

Yesterday energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband proposed that in the future no new coal-fired powerstations should receive planning consent without including a CCS demonstration scheme on their sites.
This followed on from chancellor Alistair Darling’s budget promise that the UK would build up to four CCS demonstration schemes, and that a funding mechanism would be introduced to enable this.
However, the Government has yet to decide exactly how the funding mechanism would work. Miliband said it could be based around a feed-in tariff for CCS, so these projects would receive a fixed price for electricity, or around a fixed price for carbon abated.
Conservative shadow energy and climate change secretary Greg Clark criticised the vagueness of the plans.
“There are still gaps in [the] announcement, including the refusal to make a clear commitment to an Emissions Performance Standard, which would set a legal limit on the level of CO2 pollution that a power plant could emit,” said Clark.
“We also need to know who will pay the new consumer levy and how much will be added to fuel bills.
“The Government must now move to make up for time already lost. The US, China and Germany have pulled ahead of the UK in this vital area due to the Government’s lack of support - we cannot afford any more policy delays.”
The Government’s proposals will only be made available for consultation this summer. they were welcomed by business lobby group the CBI.
“Clean coal can now be a real option when it comes to securing Britain’s energy future,” said CBI director of business environment Neil Bentley.

“Carbon capture and storage could be a transformative technology. We know it can work on a small scale, but is not yet fully commercially viable for large plants, so we welcome this financial support for demonstration CCS projects.

“Developing carbon capture technology is important globally, as well as domestically given that coal use is growing across the world. Therefore it is right for Britain to be part of the global drive towards cleaner coal.”

Source: The New Civil Engineer