The Yeomen's report

May 21, 2014
Bishop Hill in Energy: CCS

Tim Yeo and the merry men of the Commons' Energy and Climate Change Committee have released their report into carbon capture and storage. The conclusions are pretty much as you might expect, with the committee calling for the government to bung money at CCS companies and to do it quickly, quickly, quickly. The interesting bit, however, was always going to be the bit on the technical challenges. And also much as you might expect this is buried and consists largely of brushing the problems under the carpet:

It was repeatedly asserted that scientific and engineering challenges were not major factors preventing the development of CCS. Mr Warren CEO of the CCSA argued that the number of CCS projects operating or under construction around the world,“gives us a high degree of confidence that this is not a technical or scientific challenge”. Despite this there is limited experience in integrating the components which make up CCS into full-chain projects. Ongoing research and development will be critical to drive improvements...

This is followed by an extended discussion about storage capacity for carbon dioxide in the UK and ultimate acceptance that "scientific and engineering challenges are not a major barrier to deploying CCS".

Are they serious?

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).