There can be no doubt that the election of Donald Trump to a second term as President of the United States poses a huge threat to the work being done to limit the amount of greenhouse gases such as carbon in the atmosphere, and in doing so, to limit the extent of the growing climate crisis. It would then be clear that any scheme put in place by our government, aimed at bringing down the amount of carbon in the atmosphere would seem to be a good thing. Well, not everybody sees it that way…
It was reported in The Guardian on 4 October, that Rachel Reeves is preparing the way for a multibillion-pound increase in public-sector investment on the budget after the government announced plans to commit almost £22bn over 25 years to fund carbon capture and storage projects. The report went on to note that, “in what is expected to be one of the biggest green spending promises of the parliament, the chancellor, prime minister and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, will unveil the details on a visit to the Liverpool city region on Friday declaring a “new era” for clean energy jobs.”
The clean energy proposal might not be as clean as it appears to be
This might seem like good news, but a week later columnist George Monbiot was seriously questioning the wisdom of Labour’s decision to invest so heavily in carbon capture technology.
Monbiot claimed that the carbon capture scheme would be Keir Starmer’s HS2, predicting that it would be “a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – catching carbon dioxide from major industry and pumping it into rocks under the North Sea – is a fossil fuel-driven boondoggle that will accelerate climate breakdown. Its ticket price of £21.7bn is just the beginning of a phenomenal fiscal nightmare.”
Monbiot did concede that a case for a carbon capture and storage programme could possibly be made, but only if the money for cheaper and more effective projects had already been committed. Monbiot also claimed that, “the opposite has happened. Labour slashed its green prosperity plan from £28bn a year to £15bn, and with it a sensible and rational programme for insulating 19m homes.”
It is argued by the Climate Emergency Centres Network that, “most of the projects are new fossil fuel plants burning gas for electricity or making blue hydrogen. When the gas is supplied as Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), as it increasingly will be in the UK as North Sea supplies diminish, two thirds of the greenhouse gases occurs from the gas supply including from fugitive methane emissions which have a very powerful global heating impact. These emissions can never be captured: this is not clean energy!”
Not helpful to eliminate use of fossil fuels
Similarly MP Watch noted on 15 October that the UK’s CCS plans “include much new CCS-enabled fossil fuel infrastructure (in the Teesside cluster, all projects selected for funding are either new gas power stations or fossil-based blue hydrogen). This strategy will lock us into fossil fuel usage for decades, impeding the clean energy transition.”
It is also argued on MP Watch that a landmark new study has recently shown that, because of the powerful warming impact of methane leaks along the supply chain, only a third of greenhouse gas emissions occur at the point of use and that with the North Sea in decline, the extra gas for these new projects will come from Liquified Natural Gas (‘LNG’) imports. Therefore, it is argued that “even if CCS works, it will do nothing about the 2/3rds of the carbon footprint arising elsewhere in the supply chain.”
MP Watch Also suggests that the proposals are untenable because, “Government subsidy proposals, reviewed by the Subsidy Advice Unit, say that CCS plans will be exempted from a requirement that decarbonisation projects should actually reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions – on the grounds that the proposed funding is only for construction of plants, not their operation.”
It is against this background that a webinar was held on Wednesday 13 November, led by Dr Andrew Boswell, who was discussing his legal case on Net Zero Teesside as two of the first-round projects are the BP / Equinor Net Zero Teesside gas-CCS plant, and the BP H2 Teesside blue hydrogen plant. The case goes to the Court of Appeal in 2025, and current work on BP H2 Teesside at its planning examination and look at the alternatives to reach a clean energy system.
The legal case
At the webinar on Wednesday 13 November, Dr Andrew Boswell noted that the Labour government has adopted the Tory policy on Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage. CCUS means capturing CO2 from burning or processing fossil fuels, possibly in making concrete or steel. It was also noted that there are lots of different types of CCUS.
Boswell claimed that the fossil fuel industry wants CCS as it enables fossil fuel to keep extracting fossil fuels. It allows policy makers to avoid making real emission cuts towards real zero not net zero, while the climate impacts are not fully assessed. It was admitted that it is a nuanced debate and there are arguments for CCUS , especially for concrete, but CCUS is not being promoted in a nuanced way. There are misleading examples and Boswell showed one example from the BBC.
Boswell stated that CCUS is too expensive, too late and not helping towards the UK’s net zero targets. The plans launched in October by the government include £22 billion funding. It was claimed that Labour had simply taken the Tory policy without any change Then in the October budget £3.9 billion was put aside for the scheme in the 2025/6 financial year.
The policy will be based around a cluster model, which in turn is based on fossil fuels which ratchets up the cluster. There are two Track 1 clusters in Hywest Northwest on Merseyside and Net Zero Teesside, with Track 2 clusters at Peterhead and on Humberside.
Teesside Net Zero Campaign
Andrew Boswell is legally challenging the BP Equinor project on Teesside. It was said to include only a small amount of carbon capture. Furthermore, while Labour claims national renewal and jobs, Boswell claimed that many of the jobs will be just in construction and the whole issue of a just transition is not being addressed.
Most of Track 1 clusters were said to be just fossil fuel infrastructure. The Climate Impacts had been severely underestimated with emissions from outages and maintenance not included e.g. Peterhead Upstream Emissions are not accounted for correctly. Meanwhile, the carbon capture rate had been overestimated with a 90% target rate, not yet achieved anywhere in world.
It was claimed that the lack of long-term jobs will make it a work wash and that it is not needed for UK Clean Power 2030 according to the NESO Clean Power Report.
Net Zero Teesside Court of Appeal case
The story so far was outlined:
May-November 2022 Dr Boswell was involved in planning examination arguments with BP and Equinor.
- In 2023 came post-examination consultations,
- On 26 February 2024 the Teesside project was passed by the government.
- In March 2024 the Appeal launched.
- In July 2024 High Court there was the hearing, followed in August by what was described as a rushed judgement.
- In September 2024 the appeal against judgement launched.
- March 4/5 2025 the case will go to the Court of Appeal.
A few issues
It has been claimed that 90% of emissions will be captured but Boswell pointed out that nothing above 78% had yet been achieved with the best in Canada.
Gas supplied from UK North Sea, Norway and Liquefied Natural Gas from around the world would be coming to Teesside. It was noted that the calculations made were based on old emission factors as shown by recent satellite data.
Recent science calculating extractions, suggest that compression, transport and LNG Upstream Emission will result in a very high climate impact. Methane is a greenhouse gas that impacts more intensely than carbon, over a quicker period of time and all the impacts will be over the next 20 years, but it was noted by Boswell that the emission impact was calculated over 100 years, so spreading the expected impact out considerably.
It was also claimed by Boswell that CCUS is unproven at scale, it has never achieved the claimed 90% targets. It was also claimed that the companies involved in the Teesside project did not immediately admit what the upstream emissions, those involved before the fuel got to Teesside, would be.
The core of the legal case
The core of the legal case was said to be that the initial submission didn’t include Upstream Emissions. It was argued that the Upstream Emissions might be very high and that the government has no control over what is coming into the country.
It was also noted that Claire Coutinho, who was the Conservative Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero from August 2023 until July 2024 had agreed that Net Zero Teesside Power would generate 2p.8 MtCO2e with a significant effect on the climate.
Meanwhile guidance from the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IMEA) states that CCUS does not make a meaningful contribution to the UK’s drive for Net Zero National. The policy is said to be dictating the Environmental Impact Assessment and this shouldn’t be happening – it should be the other way around. The scheme at Teesside is also seen as wrong in light of the Finch Supreme Court case.
There will be a pavement protest planned for outside the Court of Appeal on 4 March next year. It was noted that the NESO Clean Power 2023 report states that CCUS can almost be eliminated and that Net Zero can be achieved without much CCUS at all.
Finally, in terms of our region Boswell said that he would like to see the Teesside Net Zero campaign on Teesside, raising the issues mentioned in the webinar with local people. You can learn more about the Clean Energy Centres here.
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