All they needed was unlimited money and it would have worked…
From the BBC:
Labour’s shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex said: “Today’s move highlights the dead hand of the Treasury in scuppering moves towards a greener energy mix.
…
“Without those guarantees the government’s commitment to energy, the environment and green jobs will be increasingly viewed as all talk, no action.”
Dr Dixon of WWF Scotland said the news was “massively disappointing”.
He said: “If technical and economic hurdles can be overcome CCS has the potential to help reduce emissions at thousands of coal power stations around the world.
“However, almost four years after launching its funding competition, plans for CCS in the UK have descended into farce.”
Juliet Swann, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The UK government failing to support the application to its necessary extent from the outset is not just an indication of their hypocrisy over climate change, but also shows how little interest they have in investing in Scotland.”
Full story at the BBC
When it’s a farce to begin with it can hardly descend into one; perhaps only a deeper farce.
Considering the vast sums available to bribe the energy companies into this farce I am surprised they have given up.
G. Karst: Priceless…
“All they needed was unlimited money and it would have worked…”
Nothing is easier than to have an unlimited supply of money. Just print it.
Oh, it generates hyperinflation? Never mind…
There is a 1 BILLION pound government grant for this project.
Obviously not enough.
“A plunge in carbon prices may create a funding gap for power stations that plan to trap greenhouse gases from smokestacks for permanent burial underground, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-06/co2-plunge-may-create-funding-gap-for-carbon-capture-pwc-says
It would appear that carbon dioxide that is to be captured and stored is worth something on the carbon credit markets. (which are not doing so well).
FAO Warmista trolls – re Statoil and their CO2 pipeline.
Its not a CO2 capture process as such – the CO2 they’re getting rid of comes out of their gas wells along with the methane and they need to ‘lose the stuff’ so that it doesn’t freeze up and clog their liquefying plant. They’re not doing it to save The Planet otherwise they wouldn’t be sucking the natural gas out of the North Sea in the first place. Would they? Huh?
And and and. The Norwegians can afford to do it.
Why can they afford to do it?
Ans= Because they’ve got loads of cheap energy to power not only the process but their entire entire economy. Get a load of that too.
And what are they doing with a lot of the gas revenue?
Ans= Saving it into a massive pension pot to look after their old folks. Compare that to the UK where everyone (poor and old folks disproportionately) are paying huge subsidies to wind-farm and solar panel owners.
Madness.
Good Point G. Karst. I was about to suggest £1.3 billion of quantitative easing, printed on Royal Bank of Scotland paper, loaded on to a truck and sent up the M6 corridor addressed to Juliet Swann with instructions to build her own sequestration plant and never ever ask for money to subsidise her country again.
It is notable that the BBC never allow comments on any of their climate B*S statements any more. Today’s doozy is back on the climate refugee meme. Government Chief Scientist no less. When ever they allow the comments they are shot down in flames in under 500 characters within the first ten posts.
Utter lunacy – you could not make it up!
It is high time to send a clear message to the UK government – scrap the Climate Change Act that mandates all of this nonsense:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035
(the epetitions on Hillsborough and an EU referendum have worked, at least as far as forcing a proper debate in Parliament)
I guess the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in a big conspiracy, huh? If you think so, fine – but first do some proper research – talk to scientists at Universities for example. If you think temperatures have been ‘flat’ for the past decade you are completely missing the point. Climate change is just that – change, but overall an increase in temperature long-term. If you have a snowy day tomorrow, doesn’t mean suddenly it’s all a big scam. And even if you don’t ‘believe’ – why on earth would you think disrupting the chemical makeup of our atmosphere is such a great idea? Can you tell me with absolute certainty we can change our atmosphere with no consequences? Humans are so unintelligent it would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
1 “Dr Dixon of WWF Scotland said:…“If technical and economic hurdles can be overcome CCS has the potential to help reduce emissions at thousands of coal power stations around the world.”
Inaki Relanzon of WWF said: “With so many unknowns surrounding CCS, would it really be sensible to invest significant sums in this technology.”
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_solutions/carbon_capture_storage/
2 “Juliet Swann, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The UK government failing to support the application to its necessary extent from the outset is not just an indication of their hypocrisy over climate change…”
If Friends of the Earth now support CCS it must have been hypocrisy on the part of FOE to sign the Greenpeace report, False Hope, which opposed CCS.
Perhaps there is a way to capture and store, beneath the oceans, all the hot air that comes out of these pressure groups.
Dammit, just Notes and Tipsed the Independent’s coverage of this story, you’re way ahead of me. To save having to go there to read it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/1631bn-flagship-green-scheme-is-cancelled-2373203.html
I’ll repeat my comment on the whole stupid business, too:
Obviously better that we the people should freeze to death of a winter, rather than allow for too little profit. (/cynical realism)
Indeed this was a giant boondoggle. All kinds of psuedo “professors” and their apparatchiks make heaps of cash from this enormous piece of gimcrackery. No commercially viable CCS plant has ever been built. All CCS plants in operation around the world today, are used to provide CO2 to be used in Improved Oil Recovery (IOR), where the Oil Company uses CO2 that it would otherwise have had to pay to generate in any case by burning methane gas. Even so, the CCS process is more expensive, and of course in IOR most of the CO2 comes back out the hole again with the oil, and also the extra oil recovered by this method creates even more CO2 when it too is burnt.
See the webpages on the UKIP Scotland Blog about the Longannet Plant and Videos Featuring the “Carbon Professor” of Edinburgh University, as he squirms and wroglles, to try and explain what went wrong. See the Scottish “Government” Cabinet Minister who has been promoting this bogosity and flummery. What now for Alex Salmond’s “World Beating Climate Targets” ?
In Chronological Order : The dismantling of a Carbon Fraud
http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/longannet-carbon-capture-storage-debacle/
http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/monckton-reports-on-the-climate-change-scare-machine/
http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/longannet-carbon-capture-scheme-scrapped/
Next for Shaving Please !
🙂
Labour’s shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex said: “Today’s move highlights the dead hand of the Treasury in scuppering moves towards a greener energy mix.
You mean there is someone even even more stupid than Huhne?
This is great news. The energy costs of implementing CCS are not affordable in a world of finite fossil fuels. http://www.sbe.hw.ac.uk/documents/01-Owens_-_published.pdf
Surely such stupidity in public office is treason? Until we start punishing rather than pensioning our politicians for playing to the loudest gallery, there really is no hope we’ll get away from these scams and the accompanying burden of public debt.
Sue Thompson says: “…”
To save you time, ask sensible polite on-topic questions, however contrary to the opinions of most people here, and you will get sensible polite answers. However, if you come on this site with flannel like “I guess the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in a big conspiracy, huh? ” you will be ignored or risk being treated with the contempt which your post displays for the sophistication of the average poster here.
‘Unlimited funds…’…??
What planet IS he on..?
Trouble with this plan was our Morlock leaders would have nowhere to go once they retire and are kicked out of their current cave the houses of parliment.
At least our generation has the plus of going down in history as one of the most stupid.
Next startup venture to be funded with Obama money – Pay OWS protesters to inhale and hold their breath!
This is the trouble with all pie-in-the-sky projects of this type. A concept is funded and put into action before real engineers are called in (a how-hard-can-it-be idea). A feasibility study worth maybe only half a million would likely have shown such a scheme to be unworkable. I’m sure the power plant engineers knew this from the start – any of you engineers out there who had any part in this got a comment?
At last! The eco-nut jobs are running out of other peoples money. The end is near for their employment! Too bad they can’t be imprisoned for crimes against humanity. pg
And across the North Sea in Denmark:
Vattenfall’s application to carry out carbon storage at a site northwest of Aalborg, Denmark was denied by the government. They will “await the outcome of carbon capture and storage projects in other countries before approving the process for use in Denmark.”
If they await the outcome of Scottish CCS projects, they might be waiting a long time…..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-15/denmark-denies-vattenfall-s-vedsted-carbon-capture-application.html
Huhne’s comment about a completely unlimited resource is unbelievable.
The whole CCS idea is a dream – they should stick to working on their crap to gold converter – it is much more realisible and would show true value for money for £1bn.
The whole UK energy policy is a joke and is led / supported by a bunch of ignorant buffoons.
From View from the Solent on October 19, 2011 at 3:33 pm:
Now that’s just silly. How could beggars pay for the carbon credits to offset the methane releases?