UKCCSRC well positioned to support the UK as a global lead in CCUS

The UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC) welcomes the announcement made yesterday (Wednesday 23 May) by Energy Minister Claire Perry that the UK is to lead an international challenge with Saudi Arabia and Mexico to remove carbon from emissions.

This relates to a Mission Innovation challenge announced in 2015 at COP21 with the UK setting out £21.5 million of funding for innovative new Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies. The aim of the funding is to reduce the cost of the technology so that CCUS can become commercially viable at scale.

Energy and Clean Growth Minister, Claire Perry said:

“My ambition is for the UK to become a global technology leader in carbon capture, working with international partners to reduce its costs. As the UK has led the debate globally on tackling climate change and pioneering clean growth, we are leading this global challenge with an initial £21.5 million investment in CCUS innovation – a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy.”

The UKCCSRC brings together the UK’s leading CCS academics, industry, regulators and others in the sector to devise and collaborate on world-leading research and is therefore, ideally placed to support the Government with the CCUS Mission Innovation challenge.

The announcement coincides with the release of a report titled Accelerating Breakthrough Innovation in CCUS, by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The report is from a Mission Innovation Experts’ Workshop held in Houston, Texas in September 2017, where the UKCCSRC supported leading UK CCUS academics, at the invitation of the UK Government, to attend. The goal of the workshop was to assess current gaps in CCUS technologies and identify the most promising directions for the research (Priority Research Directions or PDRs) needed to achieve long-term global carbon management. The PRDs described in the report will guide the R&D that is required to improve current technologies to deliver CCUS at the scale that is expected to be needed in the period 2030–2050.

UKCCSRC Director, Prof Jon Gibbins, who lead a panel at the Experts’ Workshop said:

“The UK is well-positioned to take a leading in role in Mission Innovation because of its strong academic research base, as evidenced by its excellent publication record on CCUS. The UKCCSRC will continue to support the Government in the advancement towards a low carbon UK economy and looks forward to being involved in taking forward the recommendations made in report following the meeting in Houston.”