CCSA response to The Telegraph article: Britain needs weapons. Instead it’s getting Miliband’s carbon capture vanity project

The CCSA has responded to a Telegraph article from 13 June which describes Britain’s carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) programme as a “vanity project”. This characterisation misrepresents both its strategic purpose and its already visible economic impact.

CCUS is a strategic investment in British industry, energy resilience and economic growth. The sectors targeted by CCUS, include cement, chemicals, power generation and hydrogen production. Some are heavy industries that cannot simply be electrified and which underpin both our economy and our supply chains, including that of defence.

Far from being speculative, the UK’s CCUS clusters are now in delivery. The first two transport and storage networks – Liverpool Bay CCS (part of HyNet cluster) and North Endurance Partnership (part of the East Coast Cluster) – are in construction and have already secured £3.5bn in supply chain contracts, supporting around 5,000 jobs during the construction phase alone. These are not abstract promises but real industrial activity in the UK’s manufacturing and energy heartlands. Furthermore, the first three capture projects are in construction; Net Zero Teesside, a gas power station with CCUS, Padeswood cement plant in North Wales with CCUS and Protos energy from waste plant in the North West. All of these projects are already creating jobs and economic growth in our industrial heartlands.

The article also underplays the economic rationale for government involvement. The purpose of public support is to establish shared transport and storage infrastructure capable of serving multiple industries over decades. As with other major infrastructure systems, early public investment helps create the conditions for private capital to follow at scale. Without comparable deployment support, there is a risk that investment and associated jobs will flow to countries advancing more rapidly in CCUS development.

This risk is underscored by international momentum in the sector. While it is noted that 77 CCS facilities are currently operational globally, this provides only a partial snapshot. More telling is the pace of expansion: according to the Global CCS Institute, the global project pipeline has increased from 628 to 734 projects in the past year. Although individual projects will inevitably encounter challenges, as is typical in large infrastructure programmes, the underlying chemical and engineering principles of CCUS are well established and consistent across borders. As a result, advanced economies across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East are continuing to scale deployment despite geopolitical and fiscal pressures.

The UK is particularly well placed to succeed in CCUS. Alongside extensive offshore CO₂ storage resources in the North Sea, we benefit from decades of experience in offshore energy operations, a strong regulatory framework and a highly skilled workforce. Britain has designed, built and operated more than 6,800 kilometres of high-pressure gas pipelines and has earned an international reputation for safe and reliable operation. These capabilities provide a strong foundation for a successful CCUS sector.

The economic upside is equally significant. The current pipeline of CCUS projects could add around £8bn per year to the UK economy by 2030, support by £26bn in private investment having been unlocked, in turn this is expected to support up to 50,000 jobs by 2050 and generating £94bn in gross value added. The UK’s geological advantage in CO₂ storage also creates a potential export market worth up to £30bn per year by 2050.

While we support the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee into infrastructure programmes, it is important to note that its assessment did not fully reflect the weight of expert consensus from bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Climate Change Committee, both of which conclude that CCUS is essential to meeting carbon budgets and achieving net zero. CCUS is a proven technology that has been capturing and storing CO₂ globally for more than 25 years. Without it, the cost of achieving climate goals rises significantly, with some sectors having no viable route to decarbonisation or other options for future investment to keep them present in the UK.

Britain does need strong defences, but it also needs competitive industry, secure energy supplies and resilient infrastructure that underpins national strength.  CCUS contributes to all three.