Curb your enthusiam

Bridging the gap between the UK’s CCUS targets and reality
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The UK Government’s CCUS strategy risks locking consumers into a high-cost, fossil-based future, despite cleaner and cheaper alternatives being available.

In this report, we analyse the UK’s ambition for Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) and recommend for the Government to refocus its strategy towards futureproof and high-value applications such as cement and hydrogen.

An analysis of CCUS projects worldwide carried out by the report’s author suggests that CCUS has got a history of over-promising and under-delivering. The technology has shown little evidence of cost improvements and scalability and applications in some key sectors are still untested and very costly.

However, regardless of falling expectations , CCUS is a still key tool in almost all the energy transition scenarios and will be essential to achieving the goal of net-zero emissions.

The UK’s Government outlined an ambitious CCUS strategy, aiming to capture 20-30 million tonnes of CO2 per annum by 2030, backed by £20 billion in taxpayer funding.

Figure 1: CCUS global installed capacity vs Carbon Capture cost
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Figure 2: CCUS capacity needed under IEA Net Zero scenario vs Pipeline of projects (including under construction and announced)
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Figure 5: Comparison of Levelised Cost of Electricity of Gas-CCS vs Hydrogen-CCGT in function of capacity factor
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Figure 6: Total addition cost for CCUS by sector compared to the UK ETS price range of the last nine months
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Figure 7: Cost comparison of assumptions used in CCC's "The Sixth Climate Budget" vs current price estimates
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Figure 15: Comparison of carbon intensity of different steel production processes
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Figure 18: Project costs of Blue hydrogen vs Green hydrogen in the UK 2025-2050
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Figure 19: Estimated CfD strike price for BECCS compared to other renewable technologies
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