Criticism of carbon capture mounts as the ICM Forum approaches
The 4th Industrial Carbon Management Forum (ICM Forum) will take place in the south of France this month, at a time when questions are being asked about the costs and effectiveness of carbon capture projects.
The viability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is under scrutiny as the ICM Forum in Pau approaches.
The ICM Forum — previously known as the CCUS Forum — will bring together stakeholders from industry, EU countries, EU institutions, NGOs, academia and others to discuss deployment of carbon capture projects in Europe from October 10th-11th.
Carbon capture has attracted criticism in recent years, amid fears that over-reliance on these technologies in decarbonisation plans might prolong the role of fossil fuels in economies.
“Deploying CCS technologies alongside fossil fuels won’t reduce Europe’s dependance on imports of those resources and could potentially lead to ‘lock-in’ risks in fossil fuel investments, as building CO2 infrastructure requires huge investments,” a spokesperson for Italian think-tank ECCO Climate, told Gas Outlook earlier this year.
In addition, studies have shown that a high reliance on CCS would be immensely costly, and would cost far more than a rapid decarbonisation programme that does not see widespread deployment of CCS.
A large-scale adoption of CCS would cost trillions of dollars more than a future that relies on CCS only for a narrow set of applications, according to one study by Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
Furthermore, underperforming carbon capture projects considerably outnumber successful projects globally, found a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
CCS hit a roadblock in the UK last week after a group of climate scientists and organisations sent an open letter to the government in which they collectively asked to pause a £1 billion scheme aimed at developing CCS for blue hydrogen and gas-fired generation.
The letter warns that CCS would lock in fossil fuel generation for decades to come and result in further emissions arising from methane leaks and from the transportation and processing of LNG of U.S. origin.
It also criticises plans to use CCS to produce blue hydrogen and warned of potential risks related to leakage from pipelines carrying CO2.
Gas Outlook’s Europe Correspondent Beatrice Bedeschi will be reporting from the ICM Forum. Stay tuned for our news, analysis and tweets from the event.
(Writing by Sophie Davies)