The European Commission will heed stakeholders’ viewpoints on whether Directive 2009/31/EC on carbon capture and storage (CCS) is fit for purpose. A conference in Brussels, held on 25 February, heard that the Commission is expected to submit a report to both the Council and Parliament by 31 March on a review of the CCS directive.
Ilinca Balan, policy officer CCS and renewables at DG Energy, spoke of an emerging consensus that the directive is fit for purpose. She advised against…
Potential CCS leaders: Teeside and Antwerp
In Teeside, CCS will be the main technology used in pursuing a low-carbon agenda. The Teeside Collective, which describes itself as “a cluster of leading industries,” aims to create Europe’s first CCS equipped industrial zone. The collective received GBP1 million in funding from the UK government via its local enterprise partnership to develop a business plan for CCS deploymentby summer 2015. Meanwhile the Antwerp Port Authority has outlined plans on how low-carbon local industry could be realised through CCUS. As required by the EU, the authority is about to set up a CO2 thematic group in order to qualify as a PCI. This would involve transport of CO2 to the Netherlands and possibly also to the UK.