The prospect of collecting emissions from an industrial hub and storing them deep below the North Sea has edged closer after initial test drilling off the Yorkshire coast was yesterday declared a success.
National Grid said that its exploration project revealed an undersea site 65 kilometres (40 miles) offshore could hold around 200 million tonnes of CO2 - equivalent to taking 10 million cars off the roads for a decade.
This type of storage site is common across Europe, potentially providing crucial capacity that would enable carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, without which, according to some estimates, the cost of tackling climate change is expected to be around 70 per cent greater.
National Grid described the successful drilling as “a major milestone” towards its plan to create a CCS hub in the industrialised Humber region, which accounts for around 10 per cent of total UK emissions.
Plans for the cluster were dealt a blow when 2Co Energy’s Don Valley project was overlooked by the government for a share of its £1bn CCS commercialisation pot, despite heading an EU list for funding. While the decision effectively put a halt to the scheme, which would have connected Don Valley power station to the Humber Hub, the nearby White Rose project, led by Drax, Alstom, BOC, and National Grid, remains in the running for funding and could link up with the cluster.
The government’s commercialisation competition is the first step toward creating an industry it says could be worth £6.5bn a year by the mid-2020s, providing a means of exploiting the UK’s oil and gas expertise that might otherwise be lost as North Sea yields dwindle.
Peter Boreham, National Grid’s director of European business development, said the UK is in a “good position to lead” on CCS clusters as much of its industry is located close to potential storage site in the North Sea.
“Global energy demand is likely to double in the next twenty years and CCS is the only technology that can turn high carbon fuels into genuinely low carbon electricity and keep costs low for consumers,” he added.
“Drilling is part of a programme which confirms our confidence that CCS will be a practical part of tomorrow’s energy mix.”
The project has been supported by an EU grant as well as £2m in funding from the public-private Energy Technologies Institute (ETI).
Andrew Green, programme manager for CCS at the ETI, welcomed the successful test drilling, but said further cost reductions would be needed to ensure the UK can capitalise on the technology’s potential.
“Our modelling has shown that CCS has the potential to play a major role in any future low carbon UK energy system. But the industry requires more innovation to make CCS economically viable,” he said.
“Successful testing at this site helps provide confidence that power stations and industrial sites will be able to store their CO2 rather than release it into the atmosphere.”
