Carbon Capture and Storage: Refining Scotlands CO2 assets

Scotland can realise the employment, economic and environmental benefits of carbon storage. A consortium of Scottish Government, industry and researchers has shown that rocks deep beneath the Moray Firth are capable of storing decades of CO2 output from Scotland's power stations. This emerging Carbon Capture and Storage {CCS} industry could create at least 13,000 new Scottish jobs by 2020.
These are key findings of the report, ‘Progressing Scotland’s CO2 storage opportunities’, which was unveiled at a media launch hosted by Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage {SCCS} and the Scottish Energy Minister Jim Mather MSP.

Detailed research calculates that rock, known as the Captain Sandstone, buried more than half a mile beneath the Moray Firth could store at least 15 years, and potentially a century’s worth of CO2 output from Scotland’s power industry.

The SCCS research, funded by Scottish Government and a group of businesses within the energy sector, also showed that carbon capture and storage could create 13,000 jobs in Scotland by 2020, and another 14,000 elsewhere in the UK, spread across a wide range of skills. This would increase in subsequent years. Properly developed, the UK’s share of worldwide carbon capture and storage business could be worth more than £10 billion a year by around 2025.

This is an exciting and landmark moment in the development of carbon capture and storage. The Captain Sandstone is just one of many rock formations filled with salt water in the central and northern North Sea. We have shown that this is a feasible site that could store massive amounts of CO2, helping the UK meet its targets for carbon emissions reduction. The future potential for this and other areas of the North Sea is immense.