Brown's green spin on carbon capture

UK ministers talk up the carbon capture research programme as if it were already an available technology

Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 November 2009 07.00 GMT
Gordon Brown is keen to take the high ground on climate change, in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference. Witness his eagerness to claim success when European heads of state discussed setting up a climate fund for developing countries last week.
But is it greenwash? Or, since we are now in the world of politics, is it green spin?
A key test of Brown's seriousness will be how he treats the coal industry in Britain. And in particular his approach to the proposed technology of carbon capture and storage (CCS) - the idea of catching carbon dioxide emissions as they go up the stack and transporting them for burial in holes in the ground or under the ocean.
Bright and breezy in his first prime minister's question time of the new term, Brown last month sounded tough on coal. Katy Clark, MP for North Ayrshire - where there are plans for a new coal power station at Hunterston - asked him whether the government would insist on the plant capturing its carbon emissions. He replied: "Any new coal power station has got to be carbon-capture compliant."
Only a few minutes before, one of his Scottish ministers had told Clark that "any new plant will be required to incorporate carbon capture."
But it is always wise to be sure. When is "will"? And what the heck does "carbon capture compliant" mean? I asked the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), who directed me to the statement made by the secretary of state, Ed Miliband, to parliament in April, and a consultation document published in June.
Neither Miliband nor the consultation document use the term "carbon capture compliant". Government policy, Miliband said, was to impose "two new conditions that any new coal-fired power station must meet".
First they would have to "demonstrate CCS" on part of the plant. Second the owners must "commit that CCS will be fitted on the entire plant ... within five years of 2020, subject to the technology being ready."
That, to me, is quite a long way from "will be required to incorporate CCS". But let's pursue this word "demonstrate".
As I have written here before, for all the promises there is as yet no proven technology called carbon capture and storage out there.
Miliband himself told the Commons in April: "It [CCS] has never been tried at a commercial scale and never the complete process from start to finish on a power station." There are also serious geological questions in particular about finding safe holes in the ground for hundreds of millions of tonnes of gas a year.
So any government requirements for new power plants to "demonstrate" CCS will be less about demonstration and more about research. The small print of the consultation document makes this clear.
It says the government will require all new plants to bolt on a "carbon capture unit" with a capacity to handle the emissions from a minimum 300 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity. For a typical 1600MW plant, says the consultation document, that will be enough to reduce emissions from about 750g per kilowatt-hour to around 600g. So by about one-fifth. At most.
The government is making no promises and precious few demands. It says there must be "a reasonable expectation that [the units] would operate as intended" and that "operators ... make reasonable efforts" to run them. But it agrees the CCS plants could be offline for long periods, including at times of high electricity demand.
I don't doubt that ministers are keen – extremely keen – to get CCS up and running. A spokesperson for Decc said: "We believe there is no solution to climate change without CCS and we're backing up our words with actions ... We believe it is better to fund a range of smaller projects, on a range of technologies rather than mandating full CCS, in order to prove CCS technology as quickly and comprehensively as possible."
I do doubt, however, the enthusiasm of many power companies, who see only higher generating costs. I fear they whisper to ministers that the only way of getting clean coal in future is to back dirty coal today.
The greenwash comes in when ministers dress up a research programme into a possible technology for tomorrow as if it were a functioning system for preventing carbon dioxide getting into the air today. Even if all goes to plan, only a small fraction of the emissions from planned new coal-fired power stations will be captured until at least 2025, and possible much longer.
Now in Gordon Brown's world that might mean "carbon capture compliant". But not mine.