Carbon Capture Usage and Storage
Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS), also referred to without the 'usage' part of the acronym CCS (Carbon Capture Storage), has become of increasing interest in the UK waste sector due to the carbon emitted by Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities, and specifically larger plants focused on Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) (many of the plants listed as Residual EfW in WikiWaste).
Context
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced its approach to carbon capture in October 2017, creating a task force and development pathway action plan through 2018 and 2019[1]. Part of this development plan is to support initiatives in Teeside, Merseyside and Grangemeouth as 'decarbonisation clusters'.
BEIS have announced support that could see the Suez EfW site in Teeside (Teeside EfW - lines 1-5 (Teeside & NEERC), Billingham. line 3)[2] and the Viridor EfW site in Merseyside (Runcorn EfW)[3] develop CCUS technologies, with Viridor announcing its intent to invest up to £1billion of CCUS storage technology in five of its sites[4].
Reports in October 2021
In October 2021 two reports were published regarding the application of CCUS to EfW facilities:
- Zero Waste Europe 'CCS for Incinerators? An expensive distraction to a circular economy' [5]
- Eunomia 'CCUS Development Pathway for the EfW Sector' [6] (a report commissioned by Viridor)
The reports both refer to carbon emissions from EfW plants as being approximately 1 tonne of CO2 emitted for 1 tonne of MSW processed. Whilst Eunomia set out the potential for reducing emissions from EfW in their report at a cost of between £66 and £110 per tonne processed, centred on the BEIS 'decarbonisation clusters', the Zero Waste Europe report suggests these costs will be higher and that the push towards CCS for EfW plants distract from managing waste further up the waste hierarchy.