UK Government Ready To Spend $29 Billion On Carbon Capture

The Keir Starmer government has announced funding of some 22 billion pounds for the buildout of carbon capture facilities in the North. The sum is equal to some $29 billion.

Per plans, the project, which is set to create so-called carbon capture clusters in Merseyside and Teeside, should create some 4,000 jobs and support another 50,000 over the next two decades and a half, AFP reported.

The initiative, with a size of 21.7 billion, was “reigniting our industrial heartlands by investing in the industry of the future,” Prime Minister Starmer said.

The government is hoping to attract some 8 billion pounds in private investment for the plan.

The state portion of the investment would come from the budget and from electricity bills.

The funds, to be disbursed over a period of 25 years, would be used for the construction of three projects that would capture and store carbon dioxide from hydrogen production, gas power generation, and waste generation, Sky News reported.

The amount of carbon dioxide emissions these three should capture when completed is 8.5 million tons annually, to be stored in empty gas fields in Liverpool Bay and the North Sea.

Carbon capture is considered a technology that is essential for the drive to net zero. Wood Mackenzie earlier this year estimated that by 2034 there could be carbon capture capacity of some 440 million tons by 2034, with storage capacity at 664 million tons annually.

However building that capacity would require close to $200 billion, the consultancy said.

The International Energy Agency, on the other hand, has downplayed the importance of carbon capture and storage as a means to a net-zero end.

The agency—and environmentalist organizations—have criticized carbon capture as too expensive, economically unviable, and ultimately benefiting the oil and gas industry, which both the IEA and many environmentalists would like to see gone.

Source: Oilprice.com