BP wins big in green revolution: Ministers back ‘carbon capture’ plans

Oil giant BP has emerged as one of the big winners from the Government’s ‘Green Day’ ambitions to shift away from fossil fuels towards cleaner alternatives.

Despite being a major global polluter, the British firm is involved in three projects fast-tracked for state support to drive a more environmentally friendly future.

At the heart of the plan is a controversial technology – ‘Carbon Capture and Storage’ (CCS) – where polluting carbon dioxide emissions are stored in huge caverns under the North Sea.

Gas project: Despite being a major polluter, BP is involved in three projects including Britain’s first CCS power plant on Teesside (pictured)

Carbon capture has been framed as a key tool to help the UK reach net-zero emissions by 2050, which could remove up to 50 per cent of the emissions from the country’s industry.

Ministers yesterday selected eight CCS projects across Teesside and north-west England to begin formal funding talks.

The Government wants them operating by the mid-2020s and two more by 2030.

The three BP projects include Britain’s first CCS power plant on Teesside, which, developed with Norwegian group Equinor, could produce enough electricity to power 1.3m homes a year.

BP-led projects to make low-carbon ‘blue hydrogen’ from natural gas with CCS and to make zero-carbon ‘green hydrogen’ through electrolysis on Teesside were also chosen.

BP shares rose 0.5 per cent in London while Equinor edged higher in Oslo and New York.

Louise Kingham, BP’s UK country head, said: ‘Today’s announcement is a huge step forward for these transformative projects, which will help drive the region’s low-carbon revolution and deliver the UK’s net-zero targets.’

Step forward: BP’s UK country head Louise Kingham

But with big winners, come big losers. Drax, which planned to capture emissions from its biomass plant near Selby in North Yorkshire, was snubbed. The proposed £2billion project would have created 10,000 jobs.

Its shares fell as much as 12 per cent to a ten-month low in early morning trading but closed up 5 per cent after it said it has been invited to formal talks about financial support. 

Energy provider SSE was also seemingly overlooked, with the Humber region, where it has number of projects, missing the cut.

Tom Thackray, the CBI’s director of decarbonisation, said this was a ‘missed opportunity’ by the Government, calling the Humber ‘a strategically important cluster’.

But like Drax, SSE said it stands ready to invest and would work with the Government.

As well as Net Zero Teesside Power, bpH2Teesside and Teesside Hydrogen CO2 Capture, the Government selected five in the ‘Hynet Cluster’: Hanson Padeswood Cement Works CCS Project; Viridor Runcorn Industrial CCS; Protos Energy Recovery Facility; Buxton Lime Net Zero; and HyNet Hydrogen Production Plant 1.

The Government has also shortlisted 20 hydrogen projects for financial aid including the blue hydrogen plant planned by refinery operator Essar, whose director Prashant Ruia said: ‘This enables us to confidently move forward with our plans to build a premier energy transition hub in the north-west.’

Although it is oil majors who are spearheading sustainability movements, Andy Mayer, energy analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said it was ‘the reality of decarbonisation’.

He added: ‘It’s a mistake to think about companies as goodies and baddies, based either on their green claims, or the products they sell.

‘Real environmentalism, like economics, recognises trade-offs.

‘We need energy, we need a cleaner, greener planet, and prosperity through growth and innovation to obtain both.’

The projects will create 50,000 jobs and bring ‘investment to our industrial heartlands’, the Government said.

They are concentrated within clusters because it lowers prices by sharing resources.

The Government is committed to spending £20billion on CCS over the next 20 years.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk