Thirteen years ago, on this day, October 19th, 2011,
On 19th October, 2011, the Government terminated negotiations with the ScottishPower consortium as the Government considered it could not agree a deal that would represent value for money (NAO, 2012). The first CCS competition ended without any winner.
Longannet scheme (Scotland, SSE) collapses – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/19/david-cameron-longannet-carbon-capture
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that BP had been interested in using CCS on one of its projects in 2005. proposed it. They pulled the plug in 2007, because Treasury wouldn’t comply. Then a CCS competition had been established in November 2007, Gordon Brown launched it at a WWF event. And the idea was it would be up and running within a couple of years. Ha ha. The competition dragged on and dragged on and dragged on, eventually whittled down to only one interested company. And they’d only been doing it because they were going to be given loads of money to keep the stranded assets afloat. And even then, that didn’t come off. But a second competition was already waiting in the wings.
What we learn is that CCS has a long, long history of failure in the UK, of broken promises of delayed and then ended schemes. Hopefully by now I can point to my book?
What happened next was that a second competition was set up as was the UKCCS Research Centre, some money for workshops and networking and so forth. And then the competition came undone in November 2015… And then, well, you should buy my book!!
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
October 19, 2002 – Doctors for the Environment Australia, becomes a thing.
