UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to announce a multi-million pound carbon capture scheme called Acorn. Carbon Capture has never worked and is instead a manufactured hoax by the oil and gas industry to enable themselves to continue profiteering and fekking the planet.
Sunak must know this and is willing to waste more public millions further supporting the fossil fuel industry destroying the planet.
Scientists told the Guardian that an overdependence on CCS was ill-advised. More than 700 scientists have written to the prime minister asking him to grant no new oil and gas licences, describing CCS as “yet to be proved at scale”, and the UN secretary-general called on governments last week to stop developing oil and gas.
Bob Ward, head of policy at the Grantham Institute, said CCS technology would be needed for certain industries, but that using it to enable the continued use of fossil fuels was a mistake. “What does not make sense is to carry on with further development of new fossil fuel reserves on the assumption that CCS will be available to mop up all the additional emissions. While the costs of CCS will come down, it will make fossil fuel use even more expensive, and it will not eliminate all the risks resulting from the price volatility and energy insecurity of fossil fuels. A successful and competitive economy in the future will be powered by clean and affordable domestic energy, not unreliable and insecure fossils fuels,” he said.
“CCS is not required if the government moves to renewables as quickly as possible – especially as I am unaware of any CCS that works,” added Mark Maslin, professor of earth science at UCL.
Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate at Manchester, said: “When it comes to energy emissions, the claimed prospect of CCS continues its long-established role in supporting the development of the oil and gas industry and in further delaying real cuts in emissions. Given the huge cost, very high-life cycle emissions and appalling record of working as promised, there is little, if any, merit in pursuing CCS as a major plank of UK energy strategy.”