Why CCS?
Industry experience
Industry has decades of experience capturing, transporting and piping CO2 deep underground, as well as experience in understanding and monitoring the behaviour of stored CO2. Storage sites are very carefully selected in areas where the rock formations will safely absorb CO2 deep below the seabed. The industry is also covered by strict national and international regulations to ensure health and safety and environmental protection.
CO2 is a naturally occurring gas and millions of tonnes of CO2 are safely transported each year around the world, for example in the soft drinks industry. Transporting CO2 via pipelines will be just as safe as transporting natural gas.
All the key processes of CCS have been proven over a number of years and there are currently four industrial-scale CCS projects operating worldwide storing around 5 million tonnes of CO2 each year. What needs to happen now is to integrate CCS into projects at commercial power stations and at other major CO2-emitting processes to drive the really deep emissions reductions that are needed.
The UK also benefits from its experience with North Sea oil and gas exploitation, meaning we already have many of the skills that are needed to deploy CCS projects.
A platform for injecting CO2 into safe, geological storage: Sleipner, Norway.
Courtesy of Statoil.
