Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is clearly one of the EU’s favoured technologies in answering the challenges of climate change. According to the European Commission, global greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced by at least 50% by 2050 without using CCS. This is despite the fact that energy efficiency and renewables remain – in the long term – the most sustainable solutions.

Given its preference, and strong lobbying by major companies promoting CCS, the EU is set to provide up to 300 million emissions allowances under the New Entrants Reserve (NER) of the revised Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). Depending on the traded price of CO ₂ allowances, this could be worth some €9 billion to CCS, alongside ‘innovative’ renewables technologies. In addition to this promise of money, the EU has just established a new legal framework governing the environmental and related conditions for CCS to get going. This is Directive 2009/31/EC on carbon capture and storage.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN

CCS is also receiving €1.05 billion financing under the EU’s €5 billion programme for economic recovery (Regulation 663/2009). Monies shared out under this programme should fund one project in Germany, notably the coal-fired power plant in Jänschwalde using oxyfuel capture technology. In the Netherlands, the Commission picked a project at Rotterdam using pulverised coal technology. The Polish project chosen, in Belchatów, also uses pulverised coal capture technology.

The Commission further approved a Spanish oxyfuel and saline aquifer project at the Compostilla plant. In the UK, Hatfield’s integrated gasification combined cycle capture (IGCC) technology was accepted. The Italian project based in Porto Tolle was approved using pulverised coal capture with gas/oil field storage. Each project is expected to receive €180 million, except the Italian one, which will be given €100 million. Finally, France’s €50 million project at Florange did not feature in the Commission’s first list, but is expected to be added at a later date.

FUTURE FUNDING

Further funding in the years to come may be on its way. A clear indication of this is the Commission’s recent communication on financing strategic energy technologies. Here, it identifies CCS as one of the key low-carbon technologies with ‘strong’ potential at EU level. Additional funding efforts by industry and member states for research, over a ten-year period, is calculated by the Commission as €16 billion for CCS. This compares very favourably alongside research needs for wind (€6 billion), solar (€16 billion), electricity grids (€2 billion), bioenergy (€9 billion), sustainable nuclear fission (€7 billion) and fuel cells (€5 billion). Although no money is yet included in budgets for CCS, the policy choice made by the Commission will certainly feed into future discussions on EU funding.