Energy companies announce pipeline plans to move millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide

Moves to ensure that Scotland cuts its own climate emissions and is well placed to lead the world in development of clean-up technologies took a major step forward today, said WWF Scotland.

The environmental group was responding to the announcement by three of the UK's largest energy companies to convert an onshore pipeline carrying up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Scotland.

Commenting on the news, WWF’s Climate Policy Officer, Dr Sam Gardner, said: “The plan to replace the flow of North Sea gas in this pipeline with the carbon emissions from Longannet is a welcome step forward in moves to clean-up Scotland's biggest power station with Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) technology.

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“Changing the use of existing infrastructure to remove greenhouse gases rather than bringing even more polluting fossil fuels onshore is an important symbol of Scotland's move toward becoming a green economy.

“The UK Government should move quickly to confirm Longannet as the winner of their interminable CCS funding competition or the UK risks losing a valuable opportunity to lead the world in development of this new technology.

"Using CCS at existing power stations is an important bridging technology in reducing climate change emissions, on the way to a 100 per cent renewable energy future. We hope the Scottish Government will ensure that such a future is not jeopardised and reject all attempts to build any new coal-fired power stations, such as that proposed at Hunterston.”

Earlier this year a consortium of Scottish Government, industry and researchers, published a study suggesting that 13,000 new Scottish jobs could be created by 2020 from deploying Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology in Scotland.

(GK)