Policy Focus

EU capitals failing to invest in carbon capture

Member states are failing to encourage the necessary investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, ALDE deputy Chris Davies warns.

The UK liberal deputy told theparliament.com on Monday that there has been little in the way of subsidies from national governments to help set up demonstration projects and speed up the development of CCS technology.

"In March last year, the heads of government pledged themselves to having up to 12 commercial [CCS] demonstration projects in operation by 2015. That was eighteen months ago. We haven’t got a single demonstration project yet identified," he said.

"Given that the initial costs of CCS will double or treble the costs of building a conventional coal-fired power station, we haven’t yet got a means of bridging that financial gap.

"If we don’t get a mechanism for financing and identifying the projects within the next few months, there is no chance of that 2015 target being met," he added.

Davies, who is parliament’s rapporteur on CCS, was speaking prior to a conference held to launch a report by McKinsey & Company on the economic aspects of CCS technology.

Speaking at the conference, energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs echoed Davies’ concerns that more needs to be done to establish demonstration plants.

"CCS is one of the most important issues in the challenge of trying to fight climate change and ensure security of energy supply. We should really accelerate our work towards the demonstration plants," he said.

However, there are concerns from businesses over the financial cost of CCS technology in the demonstration phase.

Davies said that these concerns could only be offset if national governments are prepared to support the investment that businesses might be prepared to deliver.

"There needs to be a clear, certain amount of money that can be given to developers," he told the conference.

“Within council, there is currently strong opposition to the proposals because I think they are looking more at ETS [the emissions trading scheme] rather than CCS.

"I hope that when it comes to negotiations that we can change that."

The report on CCS is due to be voted on in parliament’s environment committee on 7 October.