ICE says UK Needs to be More Aggressive in CCS Technology Policies

Many experts have already implored government officials to move more quickly in the UK in regards to developing and implementing carbon capture and storage CCS technology. Civil engineers have said it is imperative to move forward with the technology if the UK hopes to meet its carbon emissions cuts by the deadline.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) published a report today which details the need for a national policy statement to be implemented by the government for the technology. The ICE report says that the CCS scheme must be implemented on a national level not much different from the same policies which have been issued for coal, nuclear, and wind power technologies.

The ICE researchers said that putting into place a national CCS policy would speed up the development of such technology, as well as encourage investors to begin aggressively investing in the new equipment.

Although the government has been consulting on CCS and has proposed four demonstration plants to be set up over the next ten years, officials over at ICE have said the no investors are going to aggressively take on CCS unless forced to by government policy, because CCS will, ultimately, increase the price of energy.

ICE continued to say that the UK government, so far, is not doing enough in order to meet their radical emissions cuts of 80 per cent reductions by the year 2050. The research report further states that, currently, the UK is not implementing enough policy on CCS technology to stay at the forefront of competition for this field.

Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate change, commented on the ICE report saying that the Ernst and Young had just voted the UK as one of the most appealing places for CCS technology to be implemented, and that he was confident the UK will be among the first to begin developing and implementing clean coal technology.