KEYFACT Energy
The UK Government has committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and the Scottish Government aims to meet this target by 2045. To support this goal, the UK Government and Innovate UK established an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. This is supporting initiatives across six UK regions to develop roadmaps for the decarbonisation of industrial clusters. Scotland’s Net Zero Roadmap (SNZR) is one of these and received funding for initial work (Phase 1) to understand the scale of industrial CO2 emissions in Scotland and the potential options to address these.
Phase 1 took place between April and July 2020 and it has designed the approach for Phase 2, when the actual roadmap will be developed. Phase 1 partners have been; NECCUS, Optimat, Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) at the University of Edinburgh, the Oil and Gas Technology Centre, the Centre for Energy Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Pale Blue Dot Energy, SGN, Costain and the Energy Systems Catapult.
The geographic scope
In 2018, greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland were the net equivalent of 41.6 million tonnes of CO2. Of these, 11.9 million tonnes of CO2 were emitted by industry. Work in Phase 1 of the Roadmap mapped these emissions and showed that around 80% lie within a corridor highlighted in blue on the map, which covers Lothian in the south, through to Grangemouth (3.8 million tonnes) in the Central Belt to St Fergus (2.3 million tonnes) in the North East of Scotland. It is these emissions that SNZR is focusing on.
Scotland’s natural strengths for industrial decarbonisation
Ready-made access to a geologically perfect storage site
The North East coast of Scotland provides ready access to a sub-surface storage site which has the potential to store sixty years’ worth of the UK’s CO2 emissions. Thanks to decades of oil and gas extraction, the location, which is 100km offshore and 2km below the sea bed, is well understood by geologists and provides exactly the right conditions to store carbon safely and permanently for thousands of years.
Existing infrastructure easily re-purposed
Because the storage site once provided a large part of the UK’s natural gas supply, the sub-surface pipeline infrastructure that was used to bring the gas ashore can now be repurposed to transport CO2 offshore, providing more than £500m in cost savings and reducing the time needed to construct the pipelines. Around 30% of the UK’s known CO2 storage potential lies within 50km of this pipeline corridor making it easy to scale up. Existing onshore pipelines can also be put to good use to transport CO2 and cleaner forms of energy like hydrogen.
A world-class supply chain with the resources, skills and experience to deliver
Scotland has been home to the UK’s oil and gas sector for the last 50 years. The men and women who work here have the skills and the experience to build the technology needed to deliver a world-class CCUS sector which will decarbonise the UK’s industry quickly and effectively. They’re supported by academic institutions and a government determined to deliver an energy transition that’s rapid and fair for all.
80% of Scotland’s industrial emissions are within 30 miles of the East Coast of Scotland
From Lothian in the south, to Aberdeenshire on the north east coast, the majority of Scotland’s industrial emitters of CO2 are clustered in one, easy-to-reach corridor. Linking these sources of CO2 to easily accessible storage options make Scotland the natural choice to begin the UK’s industrial decarbonisation strategy.