London — Britain has signed contracts for two commercial projects to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions which are expected to generate around 500 skilled jobs, the government said on Thursday.
Britain has a climate target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and has said carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be needed to curb emissions from energy-intensive industrial sectors.
The projects, Heidelberg Materials’ Padeswood cement works in north Wales and Encyclis’s Protos waste-to-energy facility in Ellesmere Port in the northwest of England, will capture a total of 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 a year.
Emissions from the plants will be captured and transported via pipeline to be stored at Eni’s Liverpool Bay project.
Heidelberg Materials said its project would be the world’s first carbon capture facility to enable fully decarbonised cement production. Construction will begin later this year with first net-zero cement expected to be produced in 2029.
“Our constructive partnership with the UK Government has allowed us to reach this major milestone, which is fantastic news, not just for us, but for the industry as a whole,” Simon Willis, CEO of Heidelberg Materials UK said in the government statement.
The government did not give any financial details of the contracts, but the funding is part of the 9.4 billion pounds ($12.65 billion) the government pledged to carbon capture technology over the spending review period announced in June.
CCS involves capturing emissions from power plants and industry to enable them to be stored underground. The technology has been available for years but projects globally have struggled to take off due to high costs.
($1 = 0.7431 pounds)
Reporting by Susanna Twidale Editing by Mark Potter – Reuters
