UK's approach on CCS Mitigation needs to pace up!

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been a global initiative aimed to reduce the harmful effects of fossil fuel emissions on global warming and ocean acidification. As it should be, many countries are contributing and backing this initiative so as to minimize their carbon footprint. This week there are some positive announcements regarding the CCS. These include the declaration by the Norwegian government about its plan to develop three full scale CCS projects. Moreover, it has granted a three year extension period for its Technology Center Mongstad project. The Scandinavian country has also announced that its Petra Nova CCS project in Houston would be the world's largest post-combustion capture project.

Now that it has become absolutely clear that CCS has a great scope in keeping the environment healthy and devoid of chemical pollutants, many countries are designing and developing projects to boost this drive.

Talking about the CCS movement on our homeland, it won't be wrong to say that it's high time that the UK government needs to introspect and find solutions on how to move ahead with the CCS projects. There is an urgent need to bring our CCS projects back on track to create a greener, healthier surrounding and a much better world for our future generations.

If we take a look at Norway then it doesn't take much to observe that it has an impressive track record on CCS. This year marks its twentieth year in the Sleipner CCS project, which is the world’s first carbon dioxide storage project. Touted as one of the most successful strategies, the project has stored over 16 million tons of carbon dioxide in the past 20 years. In 2008, Norway launched the Snohvit CCS project, which has captured 3 million tons of carbon dioxide that was liberated from a gas processing plant. It's not surprising to note that this country has many such projects and can easily boast of a fat CCS portfolio.

On the 6th October, the Norwegian government announced its plan to develop CCS for three diverse yet environmentally important industries - ammonia, cement and waste management. By moving ahead with its CCS activities, the country is setting up an example for its fellow nations. In the UK, we are at a turning point as far as the CCS situation is concerned. Our focus on CCS implementation was limited to the power sector only while it has a significant importance in other industrial sectors like steel, cement, chemicals and refining. Recently, the opportunity to generate low carbon hydrogen from Steam Methane Reforming of natural gas with CCS has opened up. This makes it possible to decarbonise other sectors like heat and transport.

CCS is one of the best ways to scale down carbon emission at an affordable cost. Apart from keeping the environment clean, it is also very helpful for various sections of the UK economy. However, it would be beneficial only when we value, understand and utilise the cross sectional nature of CCS. The new UK government has promised to come up with a novel approach towards CCS and we can expect it soon.

In the opinion of Shay Ramani, founder of FreePriceCompare.com, CCS is one of the best ways to deal with the issue of high carbon emission. In his words, "we cannot just rely on renewable resources for a low carbon footprint as they contribute to a small percentage of power generation in the UK. Therefore, along with exploiting all possibilities to use renewable sources of energy, the government should also pace up its CCS projects to ensure that we can be successful at applying a controlled approach to combat the harmful effects of carbon emission so that results are visible within a couple of years."

Without an iota of doubt the UK government should pace up its CCS projects to reduce the impact of carbon emission. They need to make concrete plans and execute them to reduce the increase in carbon footprint caused by industries. We certainly expect something remarkable from Theresa May's government. For now, we can only wait and watch!