How the failure of carbon capture risks causing a net zero nightmare

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

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h/t Philip Bratby

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Meanwhile Miliband’s plans to rely on carbon capture are in ruins:

Ed Miliband has promised to drastically speed up Britain’s net zero transition but the scale of the task facing the Energy Secretary was laid bare in a damning report from the National Audit Office (NAO), published on Tuesday.

Officials told the Energy Secretary that a staggering £630m of taxpayer cash has been spent on carbon capture technology that is still years from working.

Not only did they point to the amount of investment at risk, but also stressed that the Government’s overarching goal to capture up to 30m tonnes of CO2 by 2030 is way off track.

Driving this underperformance is the fact that four key carbon capture projects are already years behind schedule, the NAO said, which is without recognising the untested technology and uncertain costs.

Crucially, it also warned that the £20bn of public money set aside to develop CO2 capture is unlikely to be enough – and far more may be needed.

The findings pose a net zero nightmare for both Labour and Mr Miliband, who secured his position in cabinet amid a pledge to decarbonise Britain’s power system by 2030.

Under Labour’s green energy plans, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are being relied on to strip up to 30m tonnes of CO2 from UK emissions each year by 2030 – and more than 100m tonnes by 2050.

Given the unpredictability, the report warns that the focus on CCS by Mr Miliband’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) could be misplaced.

Problems are so acute that DESNZ has even struggled to find people to work on its carbon capture programme, the NAO found, with more than 50 posts still unfilled.

It said: “DESNZ and the climate change committee have described CCS as being ‘essential’ to achieving net zero [but] the Government does not have and is currently not developing a credible alternative pathway without the use of CCS.

“DESNZ has applied lessons it has learnt from previous failed attempts to launch CCUS. But its inherently challenging nature remains, given the nascency of aspects of the technology.

“And DESNZ’s current approach brings new complexities to be managed, depending on parallel, interdependent negotiations with projects across different technologies.”

In practice, however, no-one has succeeded in developing a full-scale operating CCS system – partly because of engineering problems but also because of the huge costs.

Scientists estimate that capturing and burying the CO2 generated by a typical gas-fired power station could absorb 20pc of its energy production – making it uneconomic.

The NAO report warns: “There is a particular risk associated with the technology being unproven at the scale being planned, and with dependence on specialist expertise and equipment.

“For example, one of the UK emitter projects is planning to build a gas-fired power station with carbon capture, but this would be 40 times larger than any existing examples globally.

“A previous attempt to scale up CCS in the US ended before it started operating due to cost overruns attributed to the massive scaling up from pilot to commercial scale.

“Similarly, applications of CCS in the cement industry are unproven at scale, with potential limits to technical experience.”

Some experts back Mr Miliband’s determination. Simon Virley, head of energy and natural resources at KPMG’s UK accounting and consultancy division, said offshore wind had once looked unviable – but good engineering had made it a success story.

He believes the same can be achieved with carbon capture and storage.

“We have to make CCS work if we are to get to net zero and there is no time to waste,” he says.

“We have had two failed attempts before in the UK, so we must make it ‘third time lucky’, by learning lessons from past initiatives and through the Government being willing to de-risk early projects, through co-investment via the National Wealth Fund and GB Energy.”

Laith Whitwham, senior policy adviser for industrial transition and CCS at the climate think tank E3G, said previous ministers had to accept some blame for recent setbacks.

He said: “The new Government must balance the fact CCS is expensive with the fact it is needed to fully decarbonise some sectors. Frequent policy U-turns from the last government have not helped, slowing development and the scale-up that would have brought down costs.

“Nonetheless, there remains an economic opportunity, and the new Government should accelerate deployment where it makes sense.”

Scientists warn, however, that the technology still needs a great deal of research and engineering to succeed.

The Royal Society, the UK’s leading science organisation which has produced several reports on CCS, said: “An enormous and continued investment is needed each year to 2050 to build the injection wells, transport networks, monitoring technologies, and a skilled workforce, and to install hundreds of new wells each year.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/24/how-failure-carbon-capture-risks-net-zero-nightmare-labour

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The suggestion that we must spend more than £20bn on something we don’t even know will work is preposterous. Let the US or EU waste their money instead. Yet fools like Whitwham and Virley still think we can make it work when the rest of the world has failed.

And even if there is a way to make CCS commercially viable, it will both massively increase the cost of electricity, as well as increase the consumption of natural gas, as CCS can use 20% of the power station’s energy production.

Gordon Hughes sums it up perfectly:

Some leading economists take an even tougher line. Among them is Gordon Hughes, emeritus professor of economics at Edinburgh University who spent much of his career working on energy issues for the World Bank.

He points out that in 2023 the UK generated about 100 terawatt hours of its electricity from gas – generating about 36m tonnes of CO2 – with no proven technology for capturing more than a fraction of that amount.

He said: “The target of capturing 20-30m tonnes of CO2 by 2030 is absurd and always has been.

“Over the next decade conventional carbon capture will be little more than an experimental technology. I don’t know what will happen in the 2040s and there is a small probability that CCS might be viable by then but the history of the last 15 years suggests that the chances are really very low.

“To be blunt, CCUS is like a lot of the plans for net zero – just a series of technically and economically illiterate fantasies designed to avoid the reality that reaching such a target is probably infeasible and is certainly ruinous for any modern industrial economy.”

Instead of wasting £20 billion on CCS research, it should be spent constructing a fleet of new CCGT plants. All further subsidies to wind and solar farms should be stopped and emission targets dropped.