The government’s carbon capture taskforce has been set a deadline of next summer to draw up a blueprint for deploying the technology.
The clean growth strategy, launched in October, included a commitment by the government to establish a carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) cost challenge taskforce.
Its remit is to deliver the same kind of cost reductions in carbon capture, which have already been achieved in the offshore wind sector.
Responding to a written question, tabled by Labour MP Alex Cunningham, climate change minister Claire Perry recently said the BEIS (business, energy and industrial strategy) department is currently setting up the taskforce.
“We expect the task force to deliver a plan to government on deploying CCUS cost effectively in the UK summer 2018.”
She said details of the taskforce’s membership and its terms of reference will be published on the department’s website in January.
In a separate answer, Perry said the taskforce will “set out the steps needed to achieve” ambitions to deploy CCUS, which is seen as playing a potentially vital role to help the UK achieve its 2050 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent.
The government will publish a pathway for deploying CCUS in 2018, which will be informed by the taskforce’s recommendations.
Perry also said BEIS is in the “final stages” of setting up the ministerial-led CCUS council, which will meet two to three times a year to advise the department on the progress it is making on rolling out the technology. Perry told Parliament, in October, that she will chair the council.
The government committed £100 million to support the deployment of CCS in the clean growth strategy, the publication of which followed the 2015 cancellation of £1 billion worth of capital support for a government programme to commercialise the technology.
CCUS is seen as the only available technology that allows the decarbonisation of energy intensive industries and fossil fuel power stations.
The Carbon Capture and Storage Association criticised the clean growth strategy for a “lack of detail” about the delivery of its CCUS ambitions.