A UK energy regulator on Thursday offered the country’s first carbon storage licenses with 12 companies winning a total of 20 awards.
The facilities to trap global warming emissions will be built in offshore locations including near Aberdeen, Lincolnshire, Liverpool and Teesside, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) said in a statement of press
England’s oil and gas regulator, however, did not name the winners of the June-September licensing round.
“The 20 licenses in total are about 12,000 square kilometers in size, slightly larger than Yorkshire, the UK’s largest county,” the NSTA said.
The storage sites could hold up to 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2030 or about 10 percent of the UK’s total annual emissions, with 341.5 million metric tons in 2021, the agency said. Some could be operational within six years, he said.
“As a nation, we cannot meet our decarbonisation targets without carbon storage,” commented NSTA chief executive Stuart Payne. “This is zero net delivery in action.
“The awards we are offering today could store around 10% of UK emissions and, thanks to our engagement with applicants, we will have committed work plans such as seismic surveys and borehole drilling – we are working with the industry to move forward at a real pace.”.
Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance Martin Callanan said in the announcement: “Thanks to the Government’s unprecedented £20bn investment in the development of early-stage carbon capture and storage, we are in a prime position to tap into the geological gold mine beneath our shores to store it. CO2and grow our economy by becoming world leaders in this developing industry.”
The carbon capture allocation of $24.8 billion (GBP 20 billion) is set out in the Spring Budget. “This unprecedented level of funding for the sector will unlock private investment and job creation across the UK, particularly on the East and North West coasts of England and North Wales,” he can read the budget text published on March 15.
The selection of the sites considered “linkages with industrial clusters that expect carbon storage to help achieve decarbonisation targets”, the NSTA said.
Licensees must obtain seabed leases from the Crown Estate or Crown Estate Scotland for projects to progress, he said.
“As managers of the seabed for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, The Crown Estate is committed to designing and delivering the necessary leasing process for CCUS. [carbon capture, utilization and storage] developers, ensuring this works for all marine users and respects our vital coastal environments and habitats,” commented Gus Jaspert, Crown Estate’s Marine Managing Director.
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