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New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
What’s going on with CCUS and hydrogen plans in the UK?
7/5/2025
10 min read
Feature
The UK government has plans for ambitious carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) projects alongside hydrogen developments, despite Parliamentary concerns about the high cost and challenges of relatively unproven technologies being used ‘at scale’. With the first tranche of projects underway, New Energy World Features Editor Brian Davis looks at the current state of play of the East Coast Cluster and the HyNet Cluster.
It's that old adage: ‘If it was easy everybody would do it.’ When it comes to large-scale CCUS developments, the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) appears to be taking a more bullish approach to CCS than most countries worldwide.
On the positive side, as this article went to press, Eni announced it had reached financial close with DESNZ for the CO2 transport and storage system of the HyNet industrial cluster in Liverpool Bay. The deal moves the project into construction phase and supply chain contract procurement.
However, many questions remain. Only the other week, Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of S&P Global, said in a controversial Times article on 26 April that: ‘Experience shows that the transition will take longer than expected, will be more challenging and expensive, and will require trade-offs that tend to be downplayed.’ This certainly applies to areas such as CCUS, of which he says: ‘Competitive new low and zero-emission technologies are needed, and that will require technical and commercial advances in such technologies as carbon capture, hydrogen, geothermal, large-scale electricity storage and biofuels.’