UK's CCUS Funding can Benefit all Sectors

On 19 October 2021, the UK government announced the Hynet and East Coast Clusters as Track 1 clusters in the £1 billion carbon capture and storage (CCS) Infrastructure Fund. In the days since, there has been a significant reaction from various parties regarding the Acorn project in St Fergus in the North East of Scotland missing out on funding, and being set as a "reserve cluster".

It is important to set aside the politics, and step back to consider what the funding means. Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) represents a suite of technologies aimed at preventing quantities of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. Early technology in CCUS has been in use since the 1970s in some sectors and is a proven technology. However, in order to meet the UK's 2050 net zero commitment, the pace of CCUS usage needs to be accelerated to utilize and/or capture emitted CO2. CCUS is one of the innovative technologies which form part of the government's Ten Point Plan for a green recovery, but hydrogen, offshore wind farms, and nuclear power plants are other measures being supported to accelerate reducing CO2 emissions.

Track 1 of the Fund looks to advance technology in a transport and storage (T&S) network of captured CO2 which is seen as critical to supporting the transportation and storage of carbon, a common requirement for all emitters. The innovative technology, which will be developed through grant funding in T&S, will benefit more than just the selected cluster. For example, it may impact the development and rollout of Blue hydrogen in which hydrogen is produced via natural gas, the emissions of which are captured with CCUS technology. Furthermore, there is undoubtedly going to be a significant impact on the local market of the selected cluster, but the innovations conceived and developed from the allocated government funds can benefit businesses across the UK.