Backing for deep carbon storage

The UK government is all set to announce significant funding for projects to capture greenhouse gases and later store them under the North Sea. Carbon sequestration has long been regarded as the only possible solution to help mitigate the effects of global warming that involves power stations and oil rigs holding on to their emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. The gases are then pumped underground to keep them out of the atmosphere. The North Sea is thought to be ideal to store the gases, as they would simply reoccupy the spaces in deep geological formations that had previously trapped oil reserves for millions of years. Experiments are already underway in the region with Norway's Statoil Company burying carbon dioxide (CO2) under the North Sea since 1996. The British government - believing its time for the UK to extend current techniques - is all set to announce a strategy for carbon abatement technology, together with new initiatives on hydrogen, a fuel that many expect to play a major role in the replacement of fossil fuels. According to experts, carbon capture and storage is best applied to large stationary sources such as power stations and industrial plants, where carbon dioxide can be separated from the fuel gases. In 2002, about 35 per cent of the country's CO2 emissions were from energy industries. Applying carbon dioxide to the likes of power stations therefore has the greatest potential to reduce current greenhouse emissions. However, there are many outstanding technical issues still to be resolved before carbon capture and storage is widely practised. All capture technologies consume energy and reduce the efficiency of a plant.