The recent government promise of a £40 million boost for carbon abatement and fuel cell technologies gives backing to a plan for cutting emissions once dismissed as impractical – and which has now fallen under the scrutiny of the Commons Science and Technology Committee.

The controversial plan, which involves the capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), is the central technological plank of the government’s latest climate proposal. Although received with scepticism at its inception, the concept has more recently attracted the approval of scientists and engineers and even the cautious welcome of green NGOs.

More than a third of all human-produced CO2 emissions come from burning fossil fuels for electricity generation and other major industrial processes such as steel production and oil refineries. The thinking behind the plan is that these emissions could be reduced substantially without major changes to process by capturing the CO2 as it emerges, then transporting it and injecting it into an appropriate geological formation beneath land or sea.

Underground CO2 storage is not new. The gas is already injected into depleted oil fields to enhance oil recovery. But the new scheme calls for deliberate storage to mitigate against climate change.

Harry Audus, Director of the International Energy Agency’s Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, said ‘Most rational thinkers accept the viability of the technical concept.  In terms of economic viability it has to be remembered that it will cost money [but] the cost will decrease and […] the economics are looking pretty encouraging. This is great win-win: the CO2 gets stored for geological time-scales and we get more oil.’

Sceptics

But here lie the concerns of the sceptics. Some have commented that the technology is more about helping oil companies get funds from exhausted oil fields than it is about reducing emissions. Friends of the Earth’s climate campaigner Bryony Worthington cautioned: ‘Tough decisions on existing coal-fired power stations in the UK must not be ducked […]. Some coal stations are so inefficient and polluting that they should be shut and replaced by a new generation of cleaner plants.’

For Simon Shackley of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester, the issue is more about whether CCS would deter investment in renewable energy sources. ‘But’, he added, ‘it is imperative that we develop a number of different routes towards the decarbonised society – and CCS is an important part of the armoury.’

The Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry is investigating the viability of CCS for the UK in terms of the current state of R&D, projected timescales, cost and geophysical feasibility, as well as government’s role.

Costs are likely to be high: according to Audus, the £25 million the government has allocated to ‘carbon abatement technologies’ (which include efficiency and co-generation technologies as well as CCS) will be just a kick-start. ‘A demonstration would cost more like £500 million plus’, he said.  CCS could be up and running within a decade, according to the government.

See http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy for the report A Strategy for Developing Carbon Abatement Technologies for Fossil Fuel Use. Evidence can be submitted to the select committee inquiry by 30 September.