UKCCSRC Knowledge Exchange Conference 2025 – Plenary 2 – UKCCSRC & UK CCS – 2016-2025 (ECR Meeting Fund)

Emmanuel Jonah Abah (Cranfield University) share their takeaways from “Plenary 2 – UKCCSRC & UK CCS – 2016-2025” at the UKCCSRC Knowledge Exchange Conference 2025.

Plenary Session 2 of the recent  UKCCSRC Knowledge Exchange Conference offered a compelling retrospective and progressive discourse on how the UK’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) landscape has evolved over the last decade, in addition to its impending direction.

Setting the Scene

This session followed the opening plenary, which revisited the early years of UK CCS (2005–2015). In contrast, Plenary 2 turned to the more recent era, outlining how research, policy, industry, funding, and stakeholder engagement have progressed through 2016 to 2025.

This session was defined by contributions from key speakers: Brian Allison, Carys Blunt, Jon Gibbins, Aisha Ibrahim, Bryony Livesey, and Jen Roberts. Their diverse experience in academia, industry, research management, policy shaping, leadership and coordination underscored how multifaceted and interconnected the UK CCS endeavour now is. Generally, it was a period of critical reflection for most participants on the way forward amidst the gamut of challenges ranging from policy and technology deployment that UK CCS might be faced with.

Aisha Ibrahim speaking in Plenary 2

Highlights & Themes

Continuity, Transition, and Institutional Growth

One persistent subject common to all the speakers was how the momentum built earlier (2005–2015) needed to be sustained, nurtured and adapted, rather than reinventing the wheels again. The speakers reflected on institutional changes (in UKCCSRC itself, funding structures, and networks) which enabled more ambitious initiatives and collaborations. One of the speakers captured the challenge succinctly: “We must stop thinking of CCS as a set of discrete projects, it is a generational endeavour, passed forward like a baton.”

From Pilot to Scale

As technical research matures into various degrees of technological readiness level, the conversation shifts towards how to move from laboratory scale prototypes into scalable, real-world deployment. Speakers presented various challenges in upscaling carbon capture systems, validating storage integrity, and ensuring that working lab-based systems can successfully match large scale industry-level adoption. The role of demonstration projects, cross-sector partnerships, and “learning by doing” were the main points raised, amongst others.

Policy, Funding, and Institutional Incentives

Another recurring thread was that the successful implementation of CCS at the required scale hinges not just on technological advancements, but equally on consistent policy direction and reliable financial involvement from stakeholders. Speakers examined how both UK and international policy frameworks have progressed over the years or, in some cases, occasionally lagging. They all highlighted the growing involvement of funding organisations and government institutions. The discussion also delved into the dynamic interplay between governmental vision, regulatory control, and industry commitment.

Interdisciplinary & Societal Dimensions

All the speakers assert that large scale deployment of CCS is no longer limited by just technical and financial challenges, but by major socio-economic factors such as earning public trust, ensuring fair deployment through environmental justice and achieving cross-disciplinary system integration.

Why This Session Mattered

Plenary 2 was not just a retrospective history session, it was a showcase of how far the UK CCS ecosystem has come, how its complexity has deepened, and where the next point of actions might lie. By connecting threads of research, policy, funding, and public engagement across the 2016–2025 period, the speakers provided a coherent narrative, which states: CCS is no longer a mere research effort but a central pillar in industrial decarbonisation strategies.

For early career researchers new to CCS, this session offered an essential orientation on the nitty-gritty of the past, present and future evolution of the field, understanding the challenges ahead, and getting a sense of how different actors (academics, government, industry, communities) should align. For long-standing participants, it was an opportunity to reflect, critique, and galvanise commitments for the next decade.