Recommendation 11

At the 2023 Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced £20 billion for carbon capture, usage and storage (commonly referred to as CCUS).32 However, while providing a signal to the sector and investors, this technology is untested at scale in the UK. The Department acknowledges that its current ambition for CCUS to capture 30 megatons by 2030 is hugely ambitious; however, it considers that its current plan is more ‘holistic’ than previous attempts. By this it means that different carbon emitting sources, carbon capture projects, and transport and storage infrastructure are clustered, and that this will make an important difference compared to previous attempts that were focused around one type of power-based carbon emitter, with expectations that industrial emitters would follow later.33 We received written evidence from The Carbon Capture and Storage Association that indicated a number of key policy decisions and legislation still required in this parliament for government to achieve its CCUS deployment ambitions.34 This Committee has seen how previous government attempts to get CCS (carbon capture and storage) off the ground have repeatedly failed, and in 2017 we reported that ‘Halting CCS’s deployment means that the UK will have to pay billions of pounds more to meet its decarbonisation targets, has missed opportunities to be at the forefront of a growing global industry, and has damaged investors’ confidence in working with the government on CCS in the future.’35