North East touts carbon capture potential

Britain could reduce its carbon emissions by up to six per cent by 2030, by applying carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to the main polluters in the Yorkshire and Humberside region alone, according to a new study released yesterday.

The feasibility study by engineering consultancy Amec was undertaken for Yorkshire Forward Regional Development Agency and a steering group of stakeholders, and showed that carbon emissions from large scale gas- and coal-fired generators in the region could be captured and stored in the depleted oil and gas fields of the southern North Sea.

The region has the unique advantage of a high concentration of power generation plants adjacent to the near-exhausted oil and gas fields, says the report, and as such could become a skills and investment hub for emerging CCS technologies.

The Yorkshire and Humber region produces around 90 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, the majority from single power generation sources.

The report details scenarios under which a carbon sequestration network would transport between 24 million and 54 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030 to the sea bed, rising to about 60 million tonnes by 2040.

"This regional network approach would be a first in the UK and our study shows it can work," said Didier Pfleger, chief operating officer of AMEC's power and process division. "If it goes ahead, the Yorkshire and Humber area can really show how to make material progress in reducing CO2 emissions."

Critics claim that CCS systems capable of capturing, transporting and storing carbon comprises an unproven set of technologies and could pose significant risks should carbon dioxide held in geological formations should leak back into the atmosphere.

However, supporters of the technology claim that with countries such as the US and China committed to exploiting their coal reserves, carbon capture systems represent one of the most cost effective means of curbing carbon emissions and the approach was identified in the Stern Report as one measure the UK should deploy to hit its emission-reduction targets.

There are two basic approaches to CCS. Post-combustion involves ‘scrubbing’ flue gasses to extract carbon and sulphur for storage, as advocated by the Yorkshire Forward report.

The other is pre-combustion, which involves gassifying coal and extracting CO2 before it is burned.

In April, the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange issued a report criticising the Government's approach to CCS. Last year, the UK Government announced a competition for post-combustion-only CCS designs which would go into operation in 2014. However, the Policy Exchange report argued that a lack of clarity over the legislation governing the new technology had hampered efforts to develop such projects sooner.