Thoughts on Carbon Capture and Storage Coming from the European Parliament

A rewind back to 2007 reveals an EU Parliament that was very keen on carbon capture and storage (CCS) and gave it tremendous support through the CCS Directive and the NER300 financing mechanism. Five years on and for all the reasons discussed in recent posts, only the UK looks likely to see any near term CCS development and this is entirely due to its own additional policy development.

In March 2007, the Presidency Conclusions of the Brussels European Council stated;

 Aware of the huge possible global benefits of a sustainable use of fossil fuels, the European Council:

• underlines the importance of substantial improvements in generation efficiency and clean fossil fuel technologies;

• urges Member States and the Commission to work towards strengthening R & D and developing the necessary technical, economic and regulatory framework to bring environmentally safe carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to deployment with new fossil-fuel power plants, if possible by 2020;

• welcomes the Commission’s intention to establish a mechanism to stimulate the construction and operation by 2015 of up to 12 demonstration plants of sustainable fossil fuel technologies in commercial power generation.

CCS couldn’t have had a much harder push out of the starting blocks, yet none of this project activity has happened and CCS is virtually at a standstill in the EU. This has led the EU Parliament to look more closely at the issue and in the very near future we should see the Environment Committee release a report on CCS. In the meantime the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) has posted a short draft opinion on CCS on the EU Parliament website. This may give some early insight into the likely direction of the more critical Environment Committee report. Key findings from ITRE are as follows;

• Failing to include CCS within a long-term energy strategy will severely hamper national, Union and global efforts to address climate change;
• Believes that the EU’s mandatory renewable target has undermined investment in CCS, and calls, therefore, for a technology-neutral approach to the Union’s 2030 energy goals, in line with Article 194(2) of the TFEU, in order to create a level playing field and ensure effective competition amongst varying low-carbon energy technologies;
• Calls on the Commission and the Member States to address the main barriers to the deployment of CCS, such as the granting of permits and funding, the establishment of a CCS skills base and the development and testing of technologies for effective capture, transport and storage;
• Believes that incentives and policy measures should target both CCS demonstration as well as subsequent longer-term operational projects and must provide greater certainty for private sector investment; believes, furthermore, that incentives and measures should be split efficiently both within the power-generation sector and CCS within industrial production processes;
• Considers that the low carbon price delivered through the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and subsequent revenues generated from the sale of allowances under the New Entrants’ Reserve of the ETS (NER300), has failed to deliver an attractive business case for early long-term private sector investment in CCS;

This is all solid stuff and it would appear that ITRE have got to grips with both the important role that CCS must play and the challenges that CCS faces to deploy. Perhaps one surprise is the reference to Article 194(2) of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). It is difficult to see how this particular part of the treaty actually supports the need for CCS. Rather, it tends to support the set of actions that have contributed to the problems that CCS is having, namely the focus on renewable energy.

ENERGY

Article 194

• In the context of the establishment and functioning of the internal market and with regard for the need to preserve and improve the environment, Union policy on energy shall aim, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, to:
  •  ensure the functioning of the energy market;
  •  ensure security of energy supply in the Union;
  •  promote energy efficiency and energy saving and the development of new and renewable forms of energy; and
  • promote the interconnection of energy networks. 
• Without prejudice to the application of other provisions of the Treaties, the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, shall establish the measures necessary to achieve the objectives in paragraph 1. Such measures shall be adopted after consultation of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Such measures shall not affect a Member State’s right to determine the conditions for exploiting its energy resources, its choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply, without prejudice to Article 192(2)(c).  

Many will argue that support for renewable energy is the right approach to address climate change, but as I have discussed in numerous posts, it’s not quite that simple. There is little doubt that renewable energy is part of our future and in the next century it may well be the major component, if not all, of our energy system. But in the meantime we are using fossil fuels to power pretty much everything and that is going to take a century to change. If we don’t capture the majority of the CO2 associated with that ongoing use (even with it declining throughout the century) then 2°C isn’t achievable, but nor for that matter is 3°C.

The TFEU doesn’t really give much guidance to help solve this, although Article 191 states;

. . . promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular combating climate change.

This then comes down to interpretation of the phrase “combating climate change”. A hardnosed analysis of the global emissions  issue leads to the necessity for a CCS strategy, irrespective of any personal views on whether we should or shouldn’t power the world with fossil fuels. The fact is that we currently do and this existing reality won’t change anytime soon.

Photo Credit: CCS and European Parliament/shutterstock