We Can Pollute As Much As We Want Now!

Photo by TB2011

The Scottish Government seems to have fallen head over heels in love with a new report showing that it would be possible to "store" up to 100 years of Scotland's CO₂ output under the North Sea.

Woo hoo! We can pollute as much as we want with no consequences! Back of the net!

Except... the report comes from a whole load of fossil-fuel industry bodies who are competing for a huge public subsidy to study Carbon Capture and Storage. They're what is known as vested interests.

CCS is a technology that does not yet work, no matter how much the politicians try to will it. My feelings on it are thus:

1. Not one penny of public money should be diverted from renewable energy investment to study CCS.

2. If the energy companies want to try retro-fitting CCS to existing power plants, then let them do so. But do not let the possibility of CCS be an excuse for them to keep those plants open beyond their due closure dates.

3. We must not allow new fossil fuel power plants to be built on the basis that they may one day have CCS installed in them.

Carbon Capture and Storage is about power in the other sense of the word - the energy companies don't want to give up the power of controlling the country's power use through their large concrete boxes on the coast.

Those large concrete boxes have had their day.