Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the cost effectiveness of investing in carbon, capture, utilization and storage technology.

For the UK to keep options open to accommodate the different potential outcomes in 2050, then by 2035 BEIS whole system modelling suggests that for any given level of the sixth carbon budget there should be deployment of low carbon hydrogen, CCS and greenhouse gas removal technologies at scale.[1] This assessment is supported by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) who in their Sixth Carbon Budget advice classified the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a “critical and cost-effective means of meeting the UK’s 2050 Net Zero target”. [2]

[1] Impact Assessment for the sixth carbon budget

[2] CCC (2020) The Sixth Carbon Budget - The UK's path to Net Zero, Chapter 2, page 90