By Ron Bousso
HOUSTON (Reuters) – The British government will outline within days incentives for companies to bury their greenhouse gases deep underground, using a promising technology for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, a minister said on Thursday.
Britain aims to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to hold 20 million to 30 million tonnes of carbon by 2030 as part of its strategy to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050.
CCS involves filtering planet-warming carbon gases from industrial smokestacks before they hit the atmosphere and storing them underground, usually in porous reservoirs.
“There is no route that we can reach net zero without carbon capture, hydrogen and nuclear,” Graham Stuart, Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, told Reuters.
Acknowledging previous mistakes in efforts to support CCS, Stuart said the government is “determined there aren’t going to be missteps in the future and you will hear in days further announcements on that, including government support to make sure that carbon capture is unlocked.”
In the U.S., the Biden administration is taking applications to provide funding for four carbon hubs using a direct air capture technology that takes carbon dioxide from the air. Canada last year unveiled a carbon capture investment tax credit worth C$2.6 billion ($1.93 billion) over five years.
A number of oil and gas companies including BP, Norway’s Equinor and Italy’s ENi have taken part in Britain’s first CCS licencing round last year.
Without government support, a project requires a high price on carbon to become economically viable.
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by David Gregorio)
