Pouring Money Down The CO2 Drain

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

The Government has just announced two more carbon capture projects:

500 skilled clean energy jobs will be secured for workers in North Wales and the North West as 2 trailblazing carbon capture projects get ready for construction.

The UK’s first carbon capture-enabled cement plant at Padeswood, developed by Heidelberg Materials UK, and one of the world’s first full-scale carbon capture-enabled waste-to-energy facilities at Protos in Ellesmere Port, developed by Encyclis, have signed final contracts with government to begin construction. The 2 projects will provide highly skilled opportunities for Britain’s engineers, construction workers, technicians and health and safety experts. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pioneering-carbon-capture-projects-ready-for-construction

The cost of subsidising these two projects will come on top of the £9.4 billion spend on CCS announced in the June spending review, which only covers the CCUS clusters, which will pipe away and store CO2, as reported at the time:

The UK has already pledged “up to” £21.7bn of funding over 25 years to support five carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, involving “clusters” of connected facilities.

Most of this funding will come from levies on consumers, but the government has also been gradually announcing chunks of public investment to get these initiatives off the ground.

The spending review allocates another £9.4bn of capital spending by 2029. This will partly go towards “maximis[ing] deployment to fill the [CO2] storage capacity” of the first two funded clusters.

At the same time, the government also confirmed its support for the next two clusters – Acorn in north-east Scotland and Viking in the Humber in the spending review. These projects are set to be up and running in the 2030s.

The review states that the government is providing the “development funding to advance [the] delivery” of these clusters, with a final investment decision expected “later this parliament, subject to project readiness and affordability”.

As noted, once these projects are up and running, the ongoing costs will be loaded on to energy bills.

The total DESNZ budget between now and 2029/29 amounts to £45.1 billion, excluding Sizewell C and including CCS:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2025-document/spending-review-2025-html#departmental-settlements

It goes without saying that spending taxpayer money on non-jobs, that create no added value for the economy, will act as a brake on economic growth in the long run.

I cannot think of anything more stupid than to dig a big hole and bury money in it!

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Forrest Gardener
September 26, 2025 2:32 am

Why not just plant some trees?

SxyxS
Reply to  Forrest Gardener
September 26, 2025 3:11 am

You can’t rip off that much money.

Planting trees is a very well known business with a well known price structure.
There is little room for useless jobs and to steal money.

But Carbon capture is something only god and a chosen few superexperts know about.
Here is so much potential to steal money left and right and later on play the idiot when it turns out to be crazy inefficient nonsense.

And Carbon capture is probably the most obvious scam.
In the end we may find out that capturing carbon releases 10* more Carbon than is being produced.
That the captured Carbon is less than a drop in a swimming pool compared to the released quantities.
But it will take about 10 years before they’ll start to admitt it.

And on top of that – almost no country in Europe has enough capacity to store enough natural gas for a whole winter, but somehow they can store unlimited tons of co2 now.

Btw- there is no need to even plant trees.
Earth got greener by at least 5 % according to Nasa.
Almost 6 million square kilometers in size.
How much may Carbon capture add to that? 0.00001% or 0.0001%.

Reply to  SxyxS
September 26, 2025 6:39 am

Plant trees- not for carbon capturing but to produce wood and to provide habitat.

Scissor
Reply to  Forrest Gardener
September 26, 2025 3:57 am

Taxpayers still have some wealth that can be taken.

strativarius
Reply to  Scissor
September 26, 2025 4:25 am

But not much…

CD in Wisconsin
Reply to  Scissor
September 26, 2025 11:09 am

Taxpayers still have some wealth that can be taken.…….out of Britain as soon as possible.

I don’t know about Britain, but here in the U.S. I am told that consumer spending is about two-thirds of the economy. If the UK govt keep driving the British consumer further and further into poverty with ridiculous schemes like this, it logically follows that the economy will go downhill with them.

It is my guess that the current UK Labour govt can’t and won’t back away from climate alarmism and Net Zero to save face. They are just too committed to it. Politicians are never ever wrong, especially when they are.

Joe Crawford
Reply to  CD in Wisconsin
September 26, 2025 11:49 am

Don’t ya realize… the government knows better how to spend your money that you do:<)

September 26, 2025 3:02 am

Meanwhile, the latest UK YouGov poll shows, if an election were held today:

Conservative 45 seats
Labour 144
Liberals 78
Reform 311

The gap between the UK electorate and its political class, by which I mean the leadership of the three main parties (Con, Lib, Lab — and also the liberal media) is the widest it has been for at least 100 years, and is increasing. They don’t seem to understand this.

Talk to ordinary working people outside London, Manchester, Brighton or Bristol and you hear the same story: a quiet rage about immigration, ridicule of the idea that recent protests are ‘far right’, indignation at Trans policies in the public sector, indeed a bewildered rejection of Trans ideology in its entirety, and total rejection of Net Zero and the associated costs.

The most significant aspect of this is, its groups of women in social groups quite spontaneously voicing these things to unanimous approval. When the women turn in this way, the men will mostly go along, and then watch out! Indeed, when the English turn in this way, watch out!

strativarius
Reply to  michel
September 26, 2025 3:21 am

Labour have been reduced to throwing out dead cats – distractions like the so-called Britcard

Reply to  strativarius
September 26, 2025 8:19 am

And it’s not even a card, it’s an app, and we all know how careful these apps are at making sure no one steals your data.

#BritcardRefusenik

Ron Long
September 26, 2025 3:08 am

Paul H. brings us another example of virtue signaling writ large, using other people’s money, of course. Carbon Capture? Isn’t that stealing plant food? Why not plant some more trees and call it good? The new USA Ambassador to the United Nations, Waltz, said that at least nine UN Agencies are focused on Climate Change! The problem isn’t limited to the UK.

Mr.
September 26, 2025 3:15 am

These “clusters” they refer to –
in context of the overall purpose of these projects, one can’t help thinking of the whole program as a classic “cluster-f#ck”.

strativarius
September 26, 2025 3:16 am

I don’t know where all this munny is going to come from after the latest news. What comes first, saving the planet or putting on the hair shirt of self-loathing? And Starmer’s bunch are absolutely brimming with that.

Reparations and Reconciliation: Unpacking the Commonwealth’s Divided Legacy
Their estimate? £18 Trillion

But it gets worse…

Keir Starmer’s controversial decision to recognise a state of Palestine could lead to demands for the UK to pay more than £2 trillion in reparations to the countryDaily Mail

So, that’s £20 Trillion before we even think about Mad Ed’s lunatic schemes, or so-called climate reparations.

Friday funny: How do you stop the small boats coming to England?

You make every UK citizen carry a digital ID card…

The petition titled “Do not introduce Digital ID cards” has reached 700,000 signatures within a matter of hours. Having been kicked off on 9 September the petition has exploded since Labour announced its plans…
UPDATE: 752,000 signatures and counting…Guido

Naturally, I have signed.

Reply to  strativarius
September 26, 2025 6:43 am

“Friday funny: How do you stop the small boats coming to England?”

Trump knows how to stop small boats.

MarkW
Reply to  strativarius
September 26, 2025 7:13 am

They have no plans on wearing hair shirts. They plan on making the rest of us wear them.

Reply to  strativarius
September 26, 2025 8:23 am

Signed

1.1m and counting

Reply to  Redge
September 26, 2025 12:10 pm

Digital ID….your efforts are futile…they’ll just figure out a way to accomplish the same thing without you realizing it…

Reply to  DMacKenzie
September 26, 2025 10:41 pm

True, but we have to try.

In honesty, I don’t have an issue with an ID card stamped with essential information, but no way am I having a phone app.

I’d be happy with illegals to be issued an app on their government-issued phones so they can be tracked, but not UK citizens.

September 26, 2025 3:25 am

With great disappointment in my first employer after college graduation, I note that ExxonMobil is still pushing CCS to “reduce emissions during the energy transition.” They are even running sponsored posts, which I see in my Facebook feed.

It is all for show. It pains me to think about all the otherwise highly capable and insightful chemists and engineers going along with it. Or maybe they actually believe the “climate” claims, which is an even more disquieting thought about what the younger generation has been conditioned to accept as valid “science.”

https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/what-we-do/delivering-industrial-solutions/carbon-capture-and-storage

Scissor
Reply to  David Dibbell
September 26, 2025 4:05 am

Yes, this is a long running movie. As long as they’re getting paid, actors are going to follow the script.

Reply to  David Dibbell
September 26, 2025 7:40 am

Maybe Exxon should spend a few bucks sprucing up their infrastructure instead. Seems like every time the alarmists need a propaganda photo, they can find a rusting storage tank or distillation column with a faded Exxon logo.

Reply to  David Dibbell
September 26, 2025 9:09 am

I don’t think they’re “pushing it” so much as going along with it, keeping one foot on each side of the divide for now. If taking whatever fool wants to throw them some free money while looking good at the same time, well, so be it. Still paying that great dividend…

Reply to  BobM
September 26, 2025 10:38 am

“Still paying that great dividend…”
Not gonna lie – that is a great payout.

Reply to  David Dibbell
September 26, 2025 1:15 pm

It is a great investment, and company. My father and much of his extended family, including my grandfather and several uncles worked at the (then) Bayway Refinery in Linden and Elizabeth, NJ. (now owned by Phillips 66, I believe.) All had good careers and retired with a pension, and Standard Oil/Exxon stock, most of which has been handed down generation to generation. I have (framed), an original “Standard Oil Company” (New Jersey) certificate for 2 shares, my father’s first shares of stock. Each share had split 32 times, if I recall correctly… And, to top it off, Exxon put me through college on one of the company’s Teagle Scholarships, back when $3,000/yr. could pay for tuition, room, and board…

Reply to  BobM
September 26, 2025 3:18 pm

Thanks for that story. From college, I had four offers from Exxon to choose from – ER&E in Florham Park NJ, Bayway, Aruba, and Baytown TX. I chose Baytown. Great company, great people. Stayed only a little over two years, moving back to the northeast for unrelated reasons. About 15 years ago, with a severance package from a well-known consumer products company, I put a lot of it into XOM shares which I still have.

ntesdorf
September 26, 2025 3:35 am

Instead of attempting to contain CO2 underground, it would be simpler, cheaper, and just as useful to bury the money required for constraining the CO2 underground in place of the very elusive CO2.

Scissor
Reply to  ntesdorf
September 26, 2025 4:08 am

Yes, the way things are headed, one could make currency out of carbonate impregnated plastic, and then governments could seize control of wheel barrel factories.

Reply to  ntesdorf
September 26, 2025 8:17 am

Please don’t give the neo-Keynesian Marxists any ideas.

Reply to  ntesdorf
September 26, 2025 12:15 pm

Valid idea, ntesdorf….even better…
Write a check for a couple of trillion every once-in-a-while and then bury it instead of the cash.

September 26, 2025 3:38 am

There is a 100 billion pounds of gas buried under Lincolnshire.
What should the government do?
A) Spend 30 billion digging a big hole and burying stuff under the ground
B) Gain 100 billion by taking stuff from out of the ground and using it.

Answers on a blank cheque to Sir Keir Starmer, 10 Downing Street.

observa
September 26, 2025 3:50 am

Appalling waste of money when I need a modest grant for liming the oceans-
Planetary health check reveals oceans have breached critical acidification boundary

Scissor
Reply to  observa
September 26, 2025 4:11 am

Whoever is drafting those reports does not understand basic concepts, like acidity, nor do they consider what is known about past atmospheric compositions.

Reply to  observa
September 26, 2025 4:52 am

Its from Potsdam.. one of the leading anti-science AGW propaganda producers in the world.

They are damn potty !! Totally loony activists.

The purveyor of all things CRAP and BS and ARRANT NONSENSE about climate non-science.

SxyxS
Reply to  observa
September 26, 2025 5:50 am

Seems everything has reached a critical “whatever” tipping control point at the same time .
And there will be way more of this BS the closer we get to (agenda) 2030.

And especially the Oceans claim is so funny.
Even if we ignore the sheer volume of the Oceans and the tiny tiny input of humanity into a system that is so extremely robust to absorb massive volcano outbreaks and meteor impacts for hundeds of millions of years so life can exist,
the 2 great evolutionary explosions( Cambrian,Avalon) happened at 5000-7000 co2 levels = more acid than any motorhead can sniff .
But 100 ppm more are now supposed to breach boundaries.

Reply to  observa
September 26, 2025 9:02 am

£9.4 billion/500 “good” jobs = £18.8 million/job. Where do i sign up?

Tom Johnson
September 26, 2025 4:06 am

“o” £21.7bn of funding over 25 years to support five carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, involving “clusters” of connected facilities.”

It’s a “cluster” all right, but of a different kind . It’s something that only a politician could love. Anyone with half a brain would discard the concept within seconds.

September 26, 2025 4:40 am

“I cannot think of anything more stupid than to dig a big hole and bury money in it!”

I can -dig a hole and bury CO2 in it, which, if it leaks out, will kill a lot of people (and other living things in the vicinity).

September 26, 2025 5:09 am

Amid the thick clouds of smoke and confusing mirrors it is hard to know what is going on with this announcement. But here goes…

500 seems like an awful lot of people to run the facilities day-to-day, so they are probably talking about the construction phase. Those “good” jobs are going to be short-lived.

Furthermore, by engaging scarce construction trades on this folly they only make them unavailable to work on something else. There is no increase in employment.

And where is the RoI? It is all cost. There is no return.

Why would you boast about this stuff?

SxyxS
Reply to  quelgeek
September 26, 2025 5:53 am

Investing 25bio and only getting 500 jobs in return is absolutely crazy.

Bruce Cobb
September 26, 2025 5:41 am

There’s Realworld Econ 101, and then there’s “Carbon” Econ 101. Never the twain shall meet.

Scarecrow Repair
September 26, 2025 6:24 am

I cannot think of anything more stupid than to dig a big hole and bury money in it!

I can. Build a 100 mile high wall around the UK so they can reduce their own CO2 without the rest of the world polluting them with that awful foreign CO2.

September 26, 2025 6:28 am

Please call this by a more accurate name, Oxygen capture. We need to turn the tables on leftists use of language.

John Hultquist
Reply to  mkelly
September 26, 2025 8:29 am

CO2 by mass: 73% Oxygen and 27% Carbon {close enough}

Coeur de Lion
September 26, 2025 6:48 am

Lefties don’t travel much so have little idea about world CO2 production nor have had a glance at the Keeling curve (‘cos it’s a GRAPH and lefties are no good on graphs) but it shows the utter futility of Carbon capture and indeed any attempts at ‘decarbonisation’. Why is Ed so stupid? Is he a Lefty? Btw trees are neutral CO2 wise. Work it out you clever people.

John Hultquist
Reply to  Coeur de Lion
September 26, 2025 8:33 am

“Lefties don’t travel much “
Not compared to Halley’s Comet!

TBeholder
Reply to  Coeur de Lion
September 29, 2025 7:36 am

Then who is in that Frequent Fliers Club? #GreensGoByAir, etc

MarkW
September 26, 2025 7:09 am

Socialists still believe that all government spending is good, and it doesn’t matter what the money is spent on.

KevinM
September 26, 2025 8:39 am

500 skilled clean energy jobs will be secured for workers in North Wales
Sigh. Hard to compete with opponents who can freely spend other people’s money.

KevinM
Reply to  KevinM
September 26, 2025 8:40 am

“The average annual income in Wales for full-time employees in 2024 is approximately £34,303. ”

Also, interesting word choice “secured”.

Reply to  KevinM
September 26, 2025 9:08 am

Posted this above but may be more appropriate here, especially for the average Welsh workers: £9.4 billion/500 “good” jobs = £18.8 million/job. Might be a teensy wage gap between “green” jobs and average workers. Wonder if there will be any resentment and “consequences”?

KevinM
Reply to  Phil R
September 26, 2025 9:13 am

“Maths”… I think they picked 500 instead of 1000 so it would take an extra few seconds to think through. Then… look a shiny new thing. Ooooh

Shortcut: Divide by 1000 then multiply by 2
9.4B -> 9.4M
9.4M -> 18.8M
Revolution?

Reply to  KevinM
September 26, 2025 9:22 am

Not the 9 o’clock news had a nice spoof on Wales back in the days…the quire sang “laid & failed in Wales” if I correctly recall…not much change since then

Rahx360
September 26, 2025 11:00 am

I’ve been thinking for 15 minutes about what to write. But I can’t, this stupidity killed my brain.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Rahx360
September 29, 2025 8:59 am

I am with you, brother.

Sparta Nova 4
September 29, 2025 1:35 pm

Just sell the captured CO2 to make sparkling wines and more orange crush!

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