Meeting the challenge of combating climate change presents opportunities as well as risks. Developing CCS at large scale is one of those opportunities.

CO2Sense is currently a wholly owned arms length company of Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency for the Yorkshire and Humber region of England, are working towards commercial independence this year. The company is committed to helping businesses reduce CO₂ emissions and switch to renewable and low carbon methods of meeting our energy needs. However, over the next few decades we fully expect that fossil fuels will remain our main source of energy. That is why we have a programme exploring the potential of a large scale CO₂ transport network to limit the impact of emissions from heavy industry and power generation. The programme offers the potential for Yorkshire and Humber to become a global leader in the demonstration and deployment of CCS and showing the world how it can be done.

Capture at least 90% of the CO₂

With annual greenhouse gas emissions of 60 million tonnes (emitted from a few large industrial sites - see map) and access to likely safe storage sites in the southern North Sea, the region has the potential to safely conduct CCS on a commercial scale that few other areas can rival. A region wide CCS network could capture at least 90% of the CO₂ produced by conventional power stations and heavy industry along the M62/M180 corridor, and store it in depleted gas fields and saline formations deep under the southern North Sea. The CO₂ would remain there indefinitely, preventing its release into the atmosphere and its contribution to climate change. In addition there is the prospect of transporting CO₂ from capture plants in the region to the central and northern fields of the North Sea to exploit potential enhanced oil recovery opportunities.

Map of Yorkshire Humber region illustrating that CO₂ comes from a small number of large emitters

Capable of carrying up to 60 million tonnes of CO₂ per year

Therefore, 10% of the UK’s current CO₂ emissions, equivalent to half of the country’s domestic sector emissions, could be reduced by the development of a CCS cluster in Yorkshire and Humber. This would make a significant contribution to the UK’s energy, climate change and low carbon industrial goals. The strategic case for the development of such an integrated pipeline network, capable of carrying up to 60 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2030, was articulated in 2008 by Yorkshire Forward in collaboration with an industry group with representatives of developers across the CCS chain. The report - A Carbon Capture and Storage Network for Yorkshire and Humber - outlined a vision of an open-access, shared CO₂ transport network that would allow industry in the region to invest in large scale CO₂ capture plant secure in the knowledge that transport and storage infrastructure will be available for their CO₂. In Yorkshire and Humber, CCS is likely to be deployed by the region’s main emitters in stages over a 15–20 year period as economic and technical confidence in CCS grows and the commercial and regulatory framework becomes clearer.

The next step

We are now in a position to consider initiation of the network in the next five years. The UK Government and European Commission are bringing forward incentives to establish commercial demonstration scale CCS projects. The UK Government’s aim is to have up to four full chain CCS projects operating during the commercial demonstration phase of CCS. Given the scale of opportunity in Yorkshire and Humber it is our ambition, by working closely with industry, to enable two of those four projects to be constructed in the region and establish the first phase of a CO₂ transport network.

The recent announcement of the projects forwarded to the European Investment Bank for consideration for funding under the NER300 mechanism confirms developer’s confidence in Yorkshire and Humber as a major strategic location for CCS projects. Capture projects proposed by Alstom/Drax, C.GEN and 2Co Energy are all serious contenders for funding. In addition National Grid Carbon are working with the capture project developers to understand transport routes and storage opportunities for these projects.

CO2Sense is working with these industrial partners to further the case for the establishment of the CO₂ transport network and will be holding an event with MEP’s later this month to showcase the NER300 projects and the cluster work.