🇬🇧£20 billion in carbon capture and storage (#CCS) 🇬🇧

🇬🇧£20 billion in carbon capture and storage (#CCS) – this is how much UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced this week for the country to invest into CCS technologies.

The £20 billion will boost the fossil #CCS sector – extracting industrially produced CO2 and storing it underground – over the next two decades. There are no plans yet for #CDR projects, but I expect significant synergies particularly with #DACCS and #BECCS.

The #UK has already been leading the way, with an industrial scale CCS plant already operating with a capacity of 40,000 tonnes/year and its first commercial scale CCS plant announced in December to remove 1.5 million tonnes. This new budget is yet another major development for the UK #carbonmanagement sector.

So that’s the UK – but what's happening in other countries?

🇺🇸 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched a $3.5 billion program in 2022 for direct air capture (#DAC) hubs capable of capturing and storing 1 million tonnes of carbon per year and a tax credit (#45Q) increase of $85-$180/tonne of CO2 permanently stored.

🇧🇻 The Norwegian government is spearheading its #CCS project Longship, whose Northern Lights JV, to reach Phase One in 2024, has a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes. The country is also considering a reverse tax of NOK2,000/tonne (€175) to further incentivise #DAC.

🇸🇪 District heating company Stockholm Exergi, partly-owned by the city of Stockholm, has received €180 million in EU funding to expand its #BECCS projects, which it expects to be fully functional by 2026 and reduce the city’s emissions by 800,000 tonnes/year.

🇩🇪 Germany announced major CO2 infrastructure projects to commit to climate neutrality by 2045, including #OpenGridEurope’s CO2 Netz, a nationwide pipeline for transporting industrial CO2 for storage abroad, and a collaboration with Norway to build a cross-border CO2 pipeline to establish a #CCS industry with a capacity of up to 40 Mt/year.

🇪🇺 The European Commission stated that the #EU will need to capture and utilise or store between 300-640 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2050 to meet its current emissions goals. This is a daunting estimate – but if political leaders all across the region commit to investing in our future, it might just be attainable.

Overall, we are witnessing a lot of momentum in carbon management. How are leaders in your country supporting #CCS projects? What are some more examples of #CCS leadership that set a productive model?