Carbon Capture Storage battles - past, present and near future (2025 to 2030)
This seminar will be held in a hybrid format. To join this seminar online, please register through this link: Register Here
Abstract
Carbon Capture and Storage has been proposed and nearly with us for two decades. The rationale has shifted from saving the coal industry to industrial purposes and now the production of ‘blue hydrogen’ and even greenhouse gas removals. It is currently in the midst of one of its periodic hype cycles.
The UK has had a series of proposed pilot projects, crashed competitions and a recently repeated promise of $22bn in funding for construction of CCS infrastructure. This has raised the political temperature, and the fragile consensus in favour of it may not survive. How much can the last 20 years tell us about the next 5? Drawing on his recent book and developments since it was written, Marc Hudson will offer:
- some metaphors for thinking about CCS (Schrodinger’s Cat and the T-1000 Terminator)
- a very brief overview of the history to date and present status - both globally and in the UK
- some possible scenarios around the politics, economics and physics for the UK in the coming 5 years
- a set of important tasks for “non-captured” intellectuals and academics in the coming months and years.
Biography
Marc Hudson is a visiting fellow at SPRU. He is author of “Carbon Capture and Storage in the United Kingdom: History, Politics and Policies (Routledge, 2024) and authored ad co-authored peer-review articles on topics as diverse as the underlying psychological and social reasons for elite policymaker resistance to renewables in Australia, representations of energy production and energy justice in Doctor Who and “Ten interdisciplinary lessons for industrial decarbonisation practice and policy”.
He runs a climate histories website All Our Yesterdays and maintains a publicly-available spreadsheet of quality coverage of CCS developments in the UK.. He can be contacted at drmarchudson@gmail.com or @marchudson.bsky.social