MPs warn of high risk £22bn government investment in 'unproven' carbon capture technology

The Public Accounts Committee has called connected the Government to measure whether its enactment for c seizure utilisation and retention successful the UK volition beryllium affordable for taxpayers and consumers

MPs person sounded the alarm implicit the Government's £22bn concern connected "unproven" carbon-capture technology, flagging it arsenic a high-risk venture.

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has urged the Government to reevaluate its enactment for c seizure utilisation and retention (CCUS) successful the UK, questioning whether specified an concern is economically viable for some taxpayers and consumers amid soaring energy bills and the escalating cost-of-living crisis.

The committee highlighted that astir a 4th of the £21.7bn backing implicit 25 years for aboriginal CCUS projects is expected to beryllium sourced from taxes, portion the remaining three-fourths volition load consumers, who are already grappling with immoderate of the highest vigor costs globally.

With the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's (DESNZ) nonaccomplishment to enactment successful safeguards ensuring that taxpayers and consumers reap fiscal rewards from a palmy CCUS programme, on with not examining the imaginable fiscal fallout for households, MPs expressed concern.

Capturing c emissions, generated by burning fossil fuels oregon during concern activities similar cement manufacturing, and storing them permanently undergroundfor instance, successful depleted lipid fields beneath the seais what CCUS entails. Institutions similar the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Climate Change Committee tout CCUS arsenic a pivotal solution for hitting targets aimed astatine reducing the greenhouse gases fuelling unsafe clime change.

After years of effort to motorboat CCUS initiatives, the erstwhile authorities pledged £20bn successful March 2023 for the aboriginal roll-out of the technology, portion successful October 2024, Labour announced £21.7bn for 2 "carbon seizure clusters" successful Teesside and Merseyside.

However, PAC has raised alarms that CCUS whitethorn autumn abbreviated of achieving the c simplification levels oregon the timelines indispensable to deed clime goals. The Government is being cautioned by the committee against putting excessively overmuch banal successful this programme astatine the outgo of different methods to trim the UK's emissions to nett zero by 2050, specified arsenic investing successful renewable energy, according to their report.

The MPs besides highlighted the "high grade of uncertainty arsenic to whether these risky investments successful unproven technologies contiguous champion worth for wealth for taxpayers and consumers", particularly erstwhile compared to alternate carbon-cutting strategies, but successful a fewer cases wherever options are limited, similar successful the cement industry.

According to the report, the Government scaled backmost its ambitions for CCUS successful 2024 from the archetypal targets of capturing 20 to 30 cardinal tonnes of c dioxide annually by 2030, casting uncertainty connected however it volition fulfil emissions simplification commitments.

The committee further cautioned that employing CCUS for liquid earthy state wouldn't tackle upstream emissions, which see potent greenhouse gases. MPs person expressed concerns astir utilizing CCUS exertion to seizure emissions from bioenergy, targeting "negative" emissions to counterbalance different contamination with superior questions astir the existent sustainability and c savings of burning wood for powerfulness and capturing the carbon.

Committee Chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown commented connected the fiscal impact: "This £21.7bn argumentation is going to person a precise important effect connected consumers and industry's energy bills. Whether this is acceptable remains to beryllium seen. All aboriginal advancement volition beryllium underwritten by taxpayers, who presently bash not basal to payment if these projects are successful.

"Any backstage assemblage backing for specified a task would expect to spot important returns erstwhile it becomes a success. We were amazed that the Government had not adjacent considered this aspect."

Furthermore, helium urged the Government to support up-to-date with caller subject regarding CCUS and to set their strategies accordingly. He besides pointed retired the noticeable spread successful achieving nett zero pursuing past years downscaling of CCUS ambitions.

The study calls for regular assessments of payer and user risks associated with CCU projects, the implementation of mechanisms for upcoming schemes to alteration nationalist fiscal gains, and for the Treasury to verify the wide affordability of the implicit programme.

The Government is besides urged to supply its reasoning for backing CCUS successful each assemblage wherever it could beryllium implemented, promptly found caller goals for capturing emissions, clarify however it volition compensate for immoderate shortfall successful gathering targets, and contemplate however it volition way and study connected the magnitude of c captured.