Yorkshire hopes snubbed over flagship carbon storage project

Academics from Yorkshire had submitted a formal request to Whitehall that carbon capture be the focus of one of the Government’s six new technology and innovation centres (TIC), which will be opened over the coming year.

The TICs are a flagship coalition policy designed to bring business and the academic world together with the help of Government funding to develop new cutting-edge technologies in areas seen as key to the UK’s future economy.

The first TIC, for Advanced Manufacturing, was announced in March and is part-based in Yorkshire thanks to the involvement of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Rotherham.

On Friday the Yorkshire Post reported how academics from the region are drawing up a bid to bring another TIC, focusing on Offshore Renewable Energy, to Yorkshire. A decision will be made on that bid in the coming months.

After a Cell Therapy TIC was announced last month, there remain three more centres where the area of focus is still to be decided.

Academics from the York-based Centre for Low Carbon Futures – a collaborative project between the universities of Leeds, Sheffield, York and Hull working on climate change initiatives – sent a formal bid to Whitehall back in February requesting that CCS be the focus of one of the remaining TICs.

The bid had the backing of major industry players including UK Steel, Scottish & Southern Energy and Alstom Power.

The proposal document highlighted the Government’s pledge to support four CCS demonstration projects around the UK, stating: “It is essential that research, design, development, innovation and testing of CCS technologies continues in parallel with the demonstration programme, both to support these projects and to develop second- and third-generation technologies.”

CCS is an emerging technology involving the capture of carbon emissions from major polluters such as power stations and factories before they are released into the atmosphere.

Yorkshire is seen as an ideal location for CCS, because of the cluster of large polluters in the region and their proximity to depleted oil and gas fields in the North Sea, which scientists believe would be perfect for storing millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Regional planners have been drawing up ambitious plans to construct a massive CO2 pipeline running from the Aire Valley to the banks of Humber and out into the North Sea, drawing in carbon emissions from every major polluter along the way.

The scheme has the potential to slash the UK’s entire carbon emissions by 10 per cent.

But a statement from the Government’s Technology Strategy Board has now outlined a shortlist of 10 possible subject areas for the remaining three TICs – and Yorkshire’s proposed Carbon Abatement centre has not made the cut.

The 10 areas shortlisted by the strategy board are: complex systems; digital media/creative industries; future cities; future internet systems; photonics; resource efficiency; sensor systems; smart grids and distribution; space; and transport systems and integration. A final decision will be made later this year.

The board’s chief executive, Iain Gray, said: “These areas have been identified as the ones where there is most potential for a centre to have a catalytic effect in stimulating future economic growth.”

Despite the snub regional planners in Yorkshire are hopeful the door may remain open for CCS in the future should the Government find funding to create further TICs.

Mr Gray said: “We have also identified several other areas which we believe will warrant further study in time, as potential areas for such centres in future.”

It is already planned to build the world’s first carbon capture power station, on a site near Hatfield Colliery in Doncaster.

The scheme, which should create hundreds of jobs, had been in doubt when the company involved, Powerfuel, went into administration but the ambitions were resurrected following the takeover of two susbsidiaries by 2Co Energy.

The plan is for a power station using coal to generate electricity, but doing so without allowing the carbon dioxide released by the burning process into the atmosphere.

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