UK carbon capture and storage could be worth £100 billion to local manufacturing employers
Offshore Energies UK 7/27/2022
Supply chain companies in the UK offshore oil and gas sector are in prime position to win work in carbon capture and storage (CCS) if urgent action is taken by governments and industry, a new report indicates.
CCS has been recognized as a critical technology to help energy intensive sectors, like cement and power generation, meet their net zero goals. The Government’s Net Zero Strategy says the UK will need to capture 50m tons a year by 2035.
The report, commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and produced by industry body OEUK through the North Sea Transition Deal, finds that offshore oil and gas supply chain companies already have some capabilities in areas including plant design and engineering, plant fabrication, and construction.
It identifies 13 actions for government and industry, including the need for support from government through early-stage funding and additional licensing rounds.
It finds:
- The UK has most of the components necessary for a successful CCS sector; a big potential market for exports of technology and expertise; large industrial clusters; extensive gas transport infrastructure; and a good scientific understanding of the geological requirements needed for long-term CO2 storage
- CCS could be worth £20bn to the offshore oil and gas supply chain in the next ten years, and £100bn by 2050
- The UK has an estimated total storage capacity of 78 gigatons, one of the largest in Europe and enough to hold two centuries’ worth of the UK’s current emissions
- Government should speed up Track 2 clusters and introduce additional licensing rounds for storage sites
- The supply chain, although suitably experienced, is fragile and the UK is at risk of losing it to more attractive opportunities elsewhere in the world if it does not secure a first-mover advantage
Securing this work in the UK will particularly benefit communities in Aberdeen, Inverness, Liverpool, North Wales, East Anglia, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Teesside, where the existing offshore energy industry is well-placed to expand into new sectors, including CCS.
OEUK Supply Chain and Operations Director Katy Heidenreich said:
“Carbon capture and storage is going to be a key tool in our fight against climate change. It offers a huge opportunity for the UK offshore energy supply chain to help energy intensive industries cut emissions.
“If we get this right, it could unlock £100 billion of work for UK manufacturing employers by 2050. This will support UK jobs, cut emissions, boost the economy and develop skills which can be exported globally.
“Lots of progress has been made, but without urgent action the UK will miss out on the opportunity to secure a leadership position in this exciting new sector.
“Our report sets out how we will continue to work with government to seize a first mover advantage, benefitting the economy, jobs and local communities while achieving our net zero goals.”
UK carbon-capture industry could support 50,000 jobs
The UK Government says a new carbon-capture usage and storage (CCUS) industry could support up to 50,000 jobs in the country by the end of this decade.
This emerged yesterday as new measures to propel Britain's transition to a cleaner, affordable, home-grown energy system were announced.
The Energy Security Bill was introduced into Parliament by Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, and was described as the most significant piece of energy legislation in a decade.
Measures include accelerating the growth of low-carbon technologies, including CCUS and hydrogen.
Mr Kwarteng said: "To ensure we are no longer held hostage by rogue states and volatile markets, we must accelerate plans to build a truly clean, affordable, home-grown energy system in Britain.
"This is the biggest reform of our energy system in a decade. We're going to slash red tape, get investment into the UK, and grab as much global market share as possible in new technologies to make this plan a reality.
"The measures in the Energy Security Bill will allow us to stand on our own two feet again, reindustrialise our economy and protect the British people from eye-watering fossil-fuel prices into the future."
The Government says that CCUS - the process of capturing CO2 and permanently storing it deep underground - will be essential to meeting the UK's 2050 net-zero target.
Enabling infrastructure
It adds: "CO2 transport and storage networks will act as the enabling infrastructure for carbon capture and storage from a range of sources, including power plants, industrial facilities, low-carbon hydrogen production and potentially direct-air capture.
"For CCUS deployment in the UK to be successful, it is essential that there are sustainable funding models that can attract private finance at a cost that represents value for money to taxpayers and consumers.
"This Bill establishes a framework of economic regulation for the transport and storage of CO2, following consultation on commercial models to pull through the investment needed to deploy for CCUS at scale, and building upon improved understanding from previous competitions to mitigate the risks and technical and commercial challenges involved in deploying CCUS across the UK.
"The proposed CO2 transport and storage facilities supported by this Bill will establish a new CCUS industry across the UK which could support up to 50,000 jobs by 2030 and provide a total UK captured turnover of up to £8.3billion by 2050."
UK company Storegga is a key partner of a portfolio of carbon-capture and hydrogen-production proposals known as the Scottish Cluster.
The heart of the cluster is known as Acorn, which takes in key facilities across the north-east, as well as former oil and gas pipelines and North Sea sites that could be used to store CO2 permanently and safely.
Huge dismay met the UK Government's decision to snub the north-east in a £1billion funding competition last year which saw rival projects in England successful, leaving the Scottish Cluster as a reserve.
Storegga founder Alan James said yesterday: "It's great to see a continued drive for industrial decarbonisation using carbon capture and storage front and centre of the Government's Energy Security Bill, alongside the critical role of renewables deployment and efficiency drives.
Not well placed
"However, only two CO2 transport and storage infrastructure systems are progressing towards operation, and they are not well placed to provide all UK solutions.
"Nor are the two existing clusters well positioned to access the huge export market that European industrial emissions presents.
"We are calling on the Government to open up the track process for the next CCS clusters as soon as possible, and certainly before the summer recess, so that the UK can move forward quickly to decarbonise our own industrial base and create a valuable export service revenue by storing emissions from our European industrial neighbours."
Tevva unveils first hydrogen truck manufactured in Britain
by Edie Staff Reporter at Edie.net
As a rule of thumb, the heavier a vehicle is, the more challenging it is to make a pure-electric version. Emerging technologies including hydrogen will, therefore, need to scale if the UK is to meet its ambition of ending new petrol and diesel HGV sales by 2040.
Automaker Tevva this week launched the first hydrogen fuel cell HGV to be designed and manufactured in the UK. The 7.5-tonne vehicle was unveiled at the Road Transport Expo in Warwickshire, with Tevva boasting a range of up to 301 miles and refueling times of just 10 minutes. Tevva believes the design can work for “the overwhelming majority of fleet operators across a range of industries and sectors”. It is hoping to sell the truck in the UK and export to other markets including the EU and North America.
Hydrogen produces no greenhouse gas emissions at the point of combustion, making it a potential solution to air pollution from transport and to reducing emissions across a vehicle’s life cycle. The level of lifecycle emissions reduction compared with fossil fuels will depend on how the hydrogen is produced; most global production is currently fossil-fuelled, but the UK is poised to launch a low-carbon standard for production as it targets 10GW of green and blue production capacity by 2030.
“We are excited to launch our hydrogen-electric HGV, creating a landmark moment for Tevva and UK manufacturing,” said the firm’s chief executive and co-founder Asher Benner. “We firmly believe that the post-fossil fuel future, which is quickly approaching, will see a new range of technologies and fuels take centre stage in the transport industry. By embracing hydrogen, we are futureproofing ourselves, our clients and the industries and communities they operate in.”
Earlier this year, Tevva opened a new R&D base and committed to delivering 3,000 hydrogen and electric vehicles annually from 2023.
TATA CHEMICALS EUROPE OPENS THE UK's LARGEST CARBON CAPTURE PLANT'
(MENAFN- PR Newswire)
NORTHWICH, England, June 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tata Chemicals Europe ('TCE') today opened the UK's first industrial scale carbon capture and usage plant, signaling a key milestone in the race to meet the UK's net zero targets.
Tata Chemicals Europe Carbon Capture Plant, UK
The £20 million investment has been completed by UK-based Tata Chemicals Europe, one of Europe's leading producers of sodium carbonate, salt and sodium bicarbonate. The plant captures 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year - the equivalent to taking over 20,000 cars off the roads and reduces TCE's carbon emissions by more than 10%. The project will help unlock the future of carbon capture as it demonstrates the viability of the technology to remove carbon dioxide from power plant emissions and to use it in high end manufacturing applications.
In a world-first, carbon dioxide captured from energy generation emissions is being purified to food and pharmaceutical grade and used as a raw material in the manufacture of sodium bicarbonate which will be known as Ecokarb®. This unique and innovative process is patented in the UK with further patents pending in key territories around the world.
Ecokarb® will be exported to over 60 countries around the world. Much of the sodium bicarbonate exported will be used in hemodialysis to treat people living with kidney disease.
The carbon capture plant, which was supported with a £4.2m grant through the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's ('BEIS') Energy Innovation Programme, marks a major step towards sustainable manufacturing which will see TCE make net zero sodium bicarbonate and one of the lowest carbon footprint sodium carbonate products in the world. These are used to make essential items like glass, washing detergents, pharmaceutical products, food, animal feed and in water purification.
Martin Ashcroft, Managing Director of Tata Chemicals Europe, said: 'The completion of the carbon capture and utilisation plant enables us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing our supply of high purity carbon dioxide, a critical raw material, helping us to grow the export of our pharmaceutical grade products across the world.
'With the support of our parent company, Tata Chemicals, and BEIS, we have been able to deliver this hugely innovative project, enabling our UK operations to take a major step in our carbon emissions reduction journey. Since 2000 we've reduced our carbon intensity by 50% and have a clear roadmap to reduce this by 80% by 2030.'
Speaking about the opening of the plant, Secretary of State for Business and Energy, Kwasi Kwarteng, said: 'This cutting-edge plant, backed by £4.2 million government funding, demonstrates how carbon capture is attracting new private capital into the UK and is boosting new innovation in green technologies.
'We are determined to make the UK a world-leader in carbon capture, which will help us reduce emissions and be a key part of the future of British industry.'
SOURCE Tata Chemicals Europe
Public EV charging costs continue to climb as wholesale prices bite
InstaVolt is one of several to advocate for a reduction in VAT to help lower costs. Image: InstaVolt
Chargepoint operators (CPOs) across UK and Ireland's electric vehicle (EV) charging sectors have raised their prices as a result of the “soaring” energy prices seen since last year.
Following on from GRIDSERVE announcing a price hike to 48p/kWh for medium power chargers and 50p/kWh for high power chargers earlier this month, Current± reached out to other CPOs to see if they’re following suit.
Read More of the original article
Comment by Agile Energy Admin: But what does this mean? 50p/KWh is £500/MWh. The half hour ahead market for electricity average price over the last three months has been £158/MWh (15.8p/KWh) so at 50p/KWh there is a gross margin of 316%. The market price for electricity as we write at 09:30 a.m. is 1.2p/KWh and over the last month 11p/KWh. So where is this heading for EV drivers do we think? It was range anxiety, then charging anxiety - is charging price anxiety next?
The true cost of subsidised Wind Farms in the UK
An independent report by consultancy LCP, commissioned by renewable energy company Drax, found that over the last two years curtailing wind power added a massive £806million to energy bills in Britain.
Despite the growing need for more homegrown renewable power generation from wind farms to support energy security, enough renewable power to supply 800,000 UK homes went to waste in 2020 and 2021 as wind farms were routinely asked to switch off by the Electricity System Operator.
LCP said this happened as a result of constraints in the transmission system and a lack of long-duration storage capacity, which is needed to manage periods when renewable power generation outstrips demand.
Britain is a world leader in wind power with capacity increasing from 5.4GW in 2010 to 25.7GW in 2021
Wind turbines now have the capacity to provide enough renewable power for almost 20million homes.
But LCP says that, without any new long-duration storage projects built for almost 40 years in the UK, the only way to manage the imbalance when generation outstrips demand and prevent damage to the electricity grid, is to curtail wind power - a practice which could be significantly reduced if more energy storage was available.
Chris Matson, Partner at LCP, said: "Increasing the output from wind power is essential for the UK to achieve its climate targets and ensure energy security. And yet because investment in the infrastructure needed to support this expansion has not kept pace, wind curtailment is costing the consumer and the environment. Every pound spent on curtailing wind power is a pound wasted."
Drax has recently submitted an application to construct and operate a new underground pumped storage hydro power station at its existing Cruachan facility in Argyll and Bute.
The 600 MW plant will be located in one of the most constrained transmission areas and is expected to play a crucial role in supporting more wind power to come online to reduce energy bills and carbon emissions.
Penny Small, Drax's group generation director, said: "This report underlines the need for a new regulatory framework to encourage private investment in long-duration storage technologies.
"The UK is a world-leader in offshore wind, but for the country's green energy ambitions to be realised we need the right energy storage infrastructure to support this vital technology, make the system secure and reduce costs.
"Drax's plan to expand Cruachan will strengthen UK energy security, by enabling more homegrown renewable electricity to power British homes and businesses, reducing system costs and cutting carbon emissions."
BECCS: the carbon capture technology the UK is relying on to reach net zero
Published: May 17, 2022 1.43pm BST
Disclosure statement
Raffaella Ocone receives funding from Heriot-Watt University. I have received funding from EPSRC, but not related to the issues discussed in this article.
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Heriot Watt provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
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Overall, the UK spends hundreds of millions of pounds every year on the wood-burning power stations this technology would supposedly remove the emissions of. But can it deliver the kind of reduction in carbon output the country and the world needs?
To answer this question, first it’s important to understand what scientists mean by the term “negative emissions” – especially if you want to decipher climate change news for yourself.
READ MORE
Wholesale market design ‘no longer fit for purpose’ for rapidly decarbonising system – National Grid ESO
by Molly Lempriere Deputy Editor, Current±
National Grid ESO came to its conclusions through the third phase of its ongoing programme of analysis into market reforms. Image: Getty
National Grid ESO has suggested that a nodal, location-based wholesale market would be the ideal shift of the market – with the current design to impose excessive costs if left.
This comes as part of the third phase of its ongoing programme of anaylsis into how GB electricity markets should be reformed to achieve net zero cost effectively.
The ESO found that the current market wasn’t designed for net zero, with wholesale electricity market reform required to deliver net zero at significantly lower cost to industry and consumers.
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In numbers: How much waste is produced in the UK – and how much is recycled?
As part of edie’s Circular Economy Week 2022, we take a look at the official facts and figures about how much waste is generated each year in the UK, and outline recycling rates for waste streams including plastics.
by Sarah George Published 23rd May 2022
This week (23 – 27 May) is edie’s Circular Economy Week – a week-long editorial campaign designed to inform and inspire sustainability, energy and resource efficiency professionals to take bolder steps towards an economy free from waste.
As part of this campaign, this feature provides a snapshot of the levels of waste currently being generated in the UK and of how this waste is managed. It covers plastics, e-waste, food waste and waste from construction, demolition and excavation.
The UK Government’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) recently published finalized statistics on household waste generation and recycling during 2020 – the most recent full year for which data is available. That paper confirmed that the UK had missed its target to recycle 50% of household waste by 2020. The recycling rate for household waste dipped from 45.5% in 2019 to 44% in 2020, with Defra attributing backwards progress to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Challenges to the circular economy during lockdown included disrupted recycling collections, increased use of hard-to-recycle masks and PPE containing plastic, and the ending of in-person refill services. With lockdown restrictions now lifted in the UK, there is a major opportunity to increase the focus on the circular economy in policymaking and across the private sector. Here, edie provides an updated baseline from which progress must now be made.
READ MORE
Uskmouth conversion to burn waste abandoned; battery planned for site
by New Power •
Simec Atlantis Energy (SAE) has abandoned plans to convert a coal-fired power station at Uskmouth to burn pelletised waste. Instead, the company plans to install a 230MW battery on the site.
The company announced plans to convert the existing power plant to burn biogenic waste and non-recyclable plastic back in August 2018. In 2020 it said it expected to reach financial close in late 2021, building one 110MW unit immediately and planning a second at a later date. It was at that stage looking for data centres as long-term customers for the power generated.
However, a planning application was ‘called in’ by the Welsh Government in October 2021 (previously it had been under consideration by Natural Resources Wales), at which time SAE complained that the direction “has been left to the very end of the NRW process and follows over a year of detailed information sharing between SAE and NRW”. It called the decision to delay the project “a blow to South Wales”.
Uskmouth site has a 230MW grid connection previously used by the coal-fired power station, along with significant land and infrastructure that make it a prime location a battery storage system, said SAE, announcing the change of plan. The company has now submitted a Modification Application to National Grid, for the change of plans, and a screening report to Newport City Council in relation to the battery construction.
As SAE is not pursuing the Uskmouth Conversion Project and withdrawn the relevant application it has sold associated items of plant, and it said, “This contract brings in immediate funding to SAE’s business, helping to secure SAE’s broader objectives and delivering value for shareholders”. It has signed a £1.2 million contract with Wye Valley Demolition to remove the surplus plant and equipment.