Scotland saw a sharp spike in carbon emissions in the country’s latest official figures, while data also shows that only a fraction of funding for carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) has so far been disbursed.
Scotland’s carbon footprint jumped by almost 15% in 2021 to reach its highest level since 2015, marking the biggest annual increase since records began 23 years ago.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose from 51.6 million to 59.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2021 – an increase of 14.6% – although the numbers must be seen in the context of the sharp decrease during the Covid-19 pandemic the year before. At the same time, the emissions are still strikingly high. In April last year, the government scrapped its key target of reducing its GHG emissions by 75% by 2030.
A related question is what has materialised in the last three years to stem emissions – and while policies have been forthcoming, change has been slow.
Scotland’s Hydrogen Action Plan, published in December 2022, confirmed that £100m of the Emerging Energy Technologies Fund would be made available to support renewable hydrogen production, and the remaining £80m would be used to support CCUS projects.
However, only £2m has been pledged to the SCO2T Connect Project, with £1.35m disbursed to date, according to the Scottish government.
The project, spearheaded by UK gas networks company National Gas, aims to develop a first-of-its-kind CO2 transport and storage system in Scotland, enabling industrial and power sectors to decarbonise by transporting CO2 from emitter sites to a permanent geological storage facility under the North Sea.
And funding for hydrogen and CCUS is so far dwarfed by the government’s commitment to invest up to £500m million over five years to develop the offshore wind supply chain. Scotland is aiming to be Net Zero by 2045.
UK feasibility study Project Willow recently published nine options for the soon-to-close Scottish oil refinery Grangemouth’s future industrial use after evaluating more than 300 technologies.
Funding for first H2 and methanation system
HGP (Scotland), which specialises in decarbonisation and power-to-gas technology, recently received a research & development grant from Scottish Enterprise to accelerate the development of methanation technology through the manufacture of Scotland’s and the UK ‘s first Integrated hydrogen and methanation system.
The project consists of the manufacture of a 1.5MW integrated hydrogen and methanation system which includes a CCUS solution, capturing waste CO2 to produce e-fuels that can either be used by the industrial customers as part of their internal circular energy process or injected into the gas grid for use by others.
It also includes the use of its existing methanation system to evaluate waste CO2 flue streams from a selection of industrial sectors, including pharmaceutical, cement, anaerobic digestion, distilling, and waste incineration.
