A Response to Climate Change

UK Carbon Capture & Storage Demonstrator

The UK's Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) will shortly announce the winner of a competition to demonstrate the feasibility of capturing and storing carbon emissions from a coal fired power plant. Funding for one unit which is to capture carbon dioxide from the effluent gases (so-called post combustion) and to compress and store the recovered CO₂ will be awarded to a consortium led by one of the following three companies:

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC)

The UK government has introduced a Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), Phase 1 of which is to run from April 2010 until March 2013. The scheme will extend the need to monitor emissions of carbon dioxide to any UK based public or private organisation that has consumed more than 6,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of metered electricity across their business during 2008. Dependent on tariffs, this is roughly equivalent to an annual bill of between £0.5 and £1.0 million.

Determining the Scope of a Carbon Footprint

A number of conferences and workshops have been convened in the UK to discuss how organisations can determine the carbon footprint of their operations. Examples include those arranged by the Carbon Counting Group and London Business Conferences.

The Ownership of Emission Rights

A key issue associated with the operation of a trading scheme is ownership of the pollution rights. A legal challenge has recently undermined performance of the US's cap and trade market in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NO_x), whilst in Europe the right of governments to assign carbon dioxide permits at no cost has been questioned because it could be construed as state aid if recipient organisations are able to generate windfall profits by passing emission costs on to consumers. Such examples have the potential to significantly disrupt the future operation of greenhouse gase trading systems.

A Very Helpful Analysis of Energy Numbers

You can download a pdf version (or purchase a hard copy) of a very useful energy reference book by Professor MacKay of the Department of Physics, Cambridge University from the following website: http://www.withouthotair.com.