The UK Government’s CCUS strategy is based on optimistic techno-economic assumptions that are now outdated and unrealistic, warns a report from the financial think tank Carbon Tracker released today.
This strategy risks locking consumers into a high-cost, fossil-based future, despite cleaner and cheaper alternatives being available.
In December 2023 the UK outlined an ambitious CCUS strategy, aiming to capture 20-30 million tonnes of C02 per annum by 2030, backed by £20 billion in taxpayer funding. This strategy was based on the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, published in The Sixth Carbon Budget in December 2020.
However Carbon Tracker has found that, since then, cost estimates for deploying CCUS have more than doubled, while the need for carbon capture could be much smaller. For example it estimated that the need for gas plants with CCUS could be one-third of earlier estimates due to the growth of renewables, battery storage and flexible technologies.
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