not many people know
Paul Homewood
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h/t Philip Bratby
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Meanwhile, Miliband’s plans to rely on carbon capture have fallen through:
Ed Miliband has pledged to significantly accelerate the UK's net zero transition, but a damning report from the National Audit Office (NAO) on Tuesday exposed the scale of the task facing the energy secretary.
Officials told the energy secretary that carbon capture technology, which has already cost taxpayers £630 million, will take years to work.
Not only do they point to the amount of investment at risk, they also highlight that the government's overall target of capturing 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030 is far off track.
The reasons for this underperformance are four key Carbon capture project already years behind scheduleThe NAO said this was being done without recognizing the untested technology and uncertain costs.
Crucially, it also warned that the £20bn of public funding earmarked for developing CO2 capture was unlikely to be enough – more would likely be needed.
The findings represent a net-zero nightmare for both Labor and Miliband, who has retained his place in cabinet. Commitment to decarbonise UK electricity system by 2030.
Under Labour's green energy plan, the UK will rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 30 million tonnes per year by 2030, and by more than 100 million tonnes by 2050.
Given this unpredictability, the report warns that Miliband's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) may be misplaced in its focus on CCS.
The problem is so severe that DESNZ is struggling to find people to work on its carbon capture program, with more than 50 vacancies remaining, the NAO found.
It said: “DESNZ and the Climate Change Committee describe CCS as 'essential' to achieving net zero emissions [but] The government has not and is not currently developing reliable alternatives that do not use CCS.
“DESNZ has learned from previous failed attempts to launch CCUS. But given that some aspects of the technology are still in their infancy, inherent challenges remain.
“DESNZ's current approach introduces new management complexities, which rely on parallel, interdependent negotiations with projects of different technologies.”
In practice, however, no one has successfully developed a fully operational CCS system—partly due to engineering problems, but also because of the enormous cost.
Scientists estimate that capturing and burying the carbon dioxide produced by a typical gas-fired power plant could absorb up to 20% of its energy production, making it uneconomical.
The NAO report warned: “The technology is unproven on a planned scale and relies on specialized knowledge and equipment, so it presents special risks.
“For example, an emissions project in the UK is planning to build a Gas-fired power plant with carbon capturebut this would be 40 times larger than any existing example globally.
“Previous attempts to scale up CCS in the United States ended before operations began due to cost overruns resulting from the massive scale-up from pilot to commercial scale.
“Similarly, the use of CCS in the cement industry has not yet been proven on a large scale and technical experience may be limited.”
Some experts backed Mr Miliband's decision. Simon Virley, head of energy and natural resources at KPMG UK accounting and consulting Offshore wind power once looked unfeasible – but good engineering makes it a success story.
He believes the same goal can be achieved through carbon capture and storage.
“If we're going to get to net-zero emissions, we have to make CCS work, and there's no time to waste,” he said.
“We've had two failed attempts in the UK before, so we have to make it 'third time lucky', learning from past initiatives, through the government's willingness to de-risk early-stage projects, through the National Wealth Co-Investment Fund and GB Energy”.
Laith Whitwham, senior policy adviser on industrial transition and CCS at climate think tank E3G, said the former minister must take some responsibility for the latest setback.
He said: “The new government must balance the fact that CCS is expensive with the fact that some industries need to be completely decarbonized. The previous government's frequent policy U-turns did not help, slowing down the development and scale-up process that could have reduced costs. .
“Nonetheless, economic opportunities remain and the new administration should accelerate deployment where it makes sense.”
However, scientists warn that the technology still requires a lot of research and engineering to be successful.
The Royal Society, the UK's leading scientific organization, which has produced several reports on CCS, said: “Substantial ongoing investment will be required each year until 2050 to build injection wells, transport networks, monitoring technology and a skilled workforce, and to install it every year. Hundreds of new wells.
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 over £20 billion on something we don't even know if it works is ridiculous. Let the US or EU waste their money. Yet fools like Whitham and Werley still think we can make it work when the rest of the world fails.
Even if there were a way to commercialize CCS, it would significantly increase electricity costs and increase natural gas consumption, since CCS can use up to 20% of a power plant's power generation.
Gordon Hughes summed it up perfectly:
Some leading economists have taken a tougher stance. Among them is Gordon Hughes, emeritus professor of economics at the University of Edinburgh, who has spent much of his career studying energy issues for the World Bank.
He pointed out that in 2023, the UK will generate about 100 terawatt hours of electricity through natural gas and produce about 36 million tons of carbon dioxide, but there is no mature technology to capture a small part of it.
“The goal of capturing 20-30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030 is ridiculous and always has been,” he said.
“In the next decade, conventional carbon capture will be nothing more than an experimental technology. I don’t know what will happen in the 2040s, and the likelihood that CCS will be viable by then is slim, but the history of the past 15 years shows , this possibility is indeed very low.
“Frankly, CCUS is like many net zero plans – just a series of technologically and economically ignorant fantasies designed to avoid the reality that reaching such a target is probably not feasible and certainly is not feasible for any modern industrial economy. Devastating.
Rather than wasting £20 billion on CCS research, it would be better spent building a fleet of new CCGT plants. All further subsidies for wind and solar farms should be stopped and emissions targets abandoned.
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