“We have found that carbon capture and storage in the North Sea can reduce emissions from gas and coal power stations by up to 90%,” said the Labour chancellor. “So we are today publishing proposals for industry wide consultation to move this important environmental advance from research to commercial development.”
The chancellor in question was Gordon Brown, speaking in 2006 as he announced government funding for research into carbon capture and storage. He promised that the first full scale pilot project would open the following year, but in 2007 BP scrapped its billion pound plan in the North Sea.
Fast forward a few years, and it was a different government banging the same drum. “By bringing forward CCS, we could save more than £30bn a year by 2050” said Ed Davey of the coalition, restarting stalled state support for carbon capture, this time with Shell as the main partner. Despite being in the Conservative manifesto, this would not survive the election. The scheme was scrapped in 2015, days before the Paris climate talks and having already cost the taxpayer £100 million.
The Conservatives changed their minds very quickly (hardly surprising, because they changed Prime Ministers very quickly too.) Just two years after David Cameron canned CCS, a new strategy was pledging to “demonstrate international leadership in carbon capture usage and storage.”
Progress was slow, and last year the energy secretary was still promising big things just over the horizon. “The rewards will be unprecedented,” said Claire Coutinho MP as she launched another new policy paper.
With the baton passed back to Labour, now it’s their turn. Last week Keir Starmer announced £22 billion for the technology. Ed Miliband is there at the announcement, as he was when Labour last pledged their support for CCS.
Almost 20 years have passed, hundreds of millions have been spent, and Britain doesn’t have a great deal to show for its support for CCS. So it’s understandable that many feel cynical about this latest round. Official comment from Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace both decried it as a waste of money that only served to prolong the use of oil and gas.
There is, however, more to the story. Twenty years ago the focus was on capturing the carbon from coal power plants, so that we could continue to burn coal for electricity. Nobody would discuss that now, with coal eliminated entirely from the power grid.
Later rounds looked at carbon capture at gas power plants. They remain an important source of electricity and will be included here too, but not exclusively.
Starmer moved things one step further by announcing the latest round of funding at a glassworks. This was CCS “for our energy intensive industries like glassmaking here, or cement, or steel, or ceramics.” For industrial towns, this is really important: “The necessary mission of decarbonisation does not mean de-industrialisation.”
This round of investment in CCS, largely a continuation of the last government’s thinking, centres around CCS ‘hubs’ and hydrogen production rather than individual power plants. These will be in Teesside and Merseyside, both industrial areas of the country where jobs are at risk in carbon intensive industries.
If these industries were to be closed down for the climate, there wouldn’t be any net reduction in emissions. Those jobs would simply be moved overseas, because we will still need glass, cement and steel and we’ll be importing them instead. So capturing the carbon from these industries and storing it in the North Sea could be a climate policy that genuinely cuts emissions, while supporting working communities as part of a just transition.
That’s not how it is being perceived in the wider green movement. George Monbiot called it “demented”, aghast that Labour could commit £21.7 billion to carbon capture when it had cut its ‘green prosperity plan’ from £28 billion to £15 billion a year. What Monbiot doesn’t mention is that the government’s proposed investment is £21.7 billion over 25 years – so it’s not really a fair comparison, nor is it an either/or scenario. We can capture carbon from industry and also insulate homes and invest in renewable energy.
I think CCS is worth a second look, and a little more reflection from the green movement. Consider that workers in the oil and gas industry have transferable skills, from extracting fossil fuels to sequestering carbon. We don’t want to see those workers abandoned like the coal miners were a couple of generations ago. CCS can make use of this workforce, and Labour have spotted it. “The carbon capture, usage and storage industry is expected to support 50,000 good, skilled jobs as the sector matures in the 2030s, helping to support the oil and gas sector’s transition away from high emission fossil fuels by using the transferable expertise of their workforce.”
I may be entirely wrong about this. Labour’s interest in CCS may just be the result of fossil fuel lobbying. It may be another expensive failure. But it’s also possible that the environmental movement’s views on CCS haven’t moved far enough in the last 20 years, and still see it primarily as a technology to prolong fossil fuel use. Sure, you can use it that way, but that’s not the only thing it can do. It can also be a tool for the just transition. If the green movement were more constructive in its attitudes, we could work with the government to make sure that the CCS industry it fosters isn’t one geared to propping up fossil fuels, but instead supports communities and jobs in economically marginalised parts of the country.
The Earthbound Report 
This is why I love your blog. Detailed and thoughtful analysis of the issue rather than reactionary response. Thank you! Wish there were more people like you given more airtime, we would be in a much better place.
I agree wholeheartedly about the green movement needing ‘a little more reflection’ about carbon intensive industries, such as cement, steel and glass – whilst still being a supporter. However, George Monbiot makes a good point, even if all too often he does not reflect enough about how our advanced technical and industrial economy actually works on our small crowded island. ‘What if conventional cement production were replaced with geopolymeric cement? What if green hydrogen were used to make steel? What if thermal power plants were no longer required for electricity production? No such audit has been conducted.’ As you yourself have reported, carbon-free steel already exists in Sweden – and they have now even made a carbon free truck, and there is research on cement and glass. What if CCS delays take up by new technologies in our country, perhaps driven by protectionism generated by fossil fuel company lobbying?
Here in Sheffield we have been there before: in the 1980s some 30,000 jobs were lost in the steel industry, yet today more steel is produced in Sheffield than ever before – the losses were down to the use of advanced computer technology for process control on automated production lines, whilst all too many firms, often propped up by government subsidies, did not modernise fast enough.
On a personal insight, back in the mid 1970s, my father went back to his trade as a maintenance fitter after 15 years in management, and was worried that he would not cope with new technology – yet the machinery at the leading wire mill firm he found work at was all pre-war – before even his apprenticeship!
I fear that whilst we expensively, with heavy subsidies to private industry, dump carbon in used up North Sea gas fields, the Chinese will have moved on to carbon-free industrial processes, and we will yet again be left behind. Better perhaps to spend the £21.7 billion on advanced research and let private industry catch up or founder.
All good points, though it’s worth noting that Sweden’s hydrogen steel mill is also built with government support, so there’s no getting away from state funding. And geopolymeric concrete uses fly ash from thermal power stations, so it’s still connected to combustive technologies. We can do both of these things and CCS, so they aren’t either/or choices.
Part of the problem is of course that building new green production facilities is expensive, and if costs are now higher, production will move overseas and total global emissions will remain the same. If government support can keep production in the UK but reduce its carbon emissions, while also finding a new role for workers exiting the oil and gas industry, then it will be well worth the spend.
Jeremy – As you know, I thoroughly enjoyed your book and have now tried to get three different American men to read it. One is my father, who may yet be persuaded out of paternal affection; one is a bookseller at a university; and one is a mixed-race colleague. Two of the three found the title so unappealing as to make them not want to read the book. The third simply said he understood that both were a problem and wasn’t interested in their intersection. Am just letting you know in case you and your publisher ever consider another press destined for the U.S. market. It is such a great book and vital read that I hate to see its title cause its neglect here where we most need to understand.
* sorry, meant in case you ever consider another printing!
Thanks for the feedback – ironically enough it was the American publisher that pushed for that title! I originally had it as a question: Is climate change racist?, which was the question I set out to answer for myself in writing the book. I would like to do a second edition at some point, and a change in title would probably be helpful.
Yes, publishers often have less worthy ideas than their writers. Putting it in the form of a question would be an improvement. Glad to hear you might do a second edition!!!