Brussels, 09/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption by a comfortable majority (54 for, 1 against and 1 abstention) of the report by Chris Davies (ALDE, UK) on the draft directive aimed at giving the EU a legal framework for encouraging geological carbon capture and storage (CCS), members of the European Parliament's environment committee acknowledged on Tuesday 7 October that the CCS technique in safe and environmentally-friendly conditions was one of the ways to combat climate change as long as coal-fired plants are still necessary. From this, they call for all new large electricity generating plants to be equipped, by 2015, with new technologies allowing CO2 to be permanently stored in the geological sub-soil.
Via an amendment introducing a standard of performance with regard to emissions for new power plants of a capacity above 300 Megawatts, MEPs advocate that, from 2015 on, these large plants should no longer emit more than 500 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour on an average annual basis, so that they will be encouraged to store carbon underground rather than release it into the atmosphere.
In order to support the funding of major pioneer installation demonstration projects in the EU and in third countries, the possibility of attributing up to 500 million emissions quotas to these projects as part of the Community emissions trading scheme (ETS) had already been requested by the environment committee when it adopted, that same day, the report by Avril Doyle (EPP-ED, Ireland) on the proposal for revision and extension of ETS (EUROPE 9756). These quotas could generate up to €10 billion in receipts, depending on the price of carbon when the gas is stored underground in former gas and oil fields or in saline tanks.
With the Davies report, MEPs also call on the European Commission to ensure that contracts for building 12 major CCS demonstration projects - that the European Council of March 2007 had undertaken to support financially - are concluded before the United Nations framework conference on climate change in Copenhagen (December 2009) which is supposed to result in a global agreement for the post 2012 period. Chris Davies, who was disappointed that none of the projects promised for 2015 had yet begun, said this was the only way to allow the new technology to finally take off and to be commercially viable in the next 15 to 20 years (EUROPE 9693).
MEPs trust that operators will pay annual contributions to fuel a security fund in the member state that houses a CCS site. This fund will aim to cover the cost of control, supervision and decontamination of the site after its closure when the responsibility of the closed site has been transferred to the national authority.
For long term storage, MEPs consider that the operator must be responsible for at least 50 years once the site is closed (the European Commission for its part suggested transferring responsibility and legal obligations from the private sector to the member states).
“We thus guarantee that long term costs of a commercial activity will not be borne by member state budgets, or European taxpayers”, said Evangelia Tzampazi, speaking on behalf of the PES Group.
The WWF is pleased that MEPs took a stance in favour of a limit value of 500 grams of CO2 emissions per kw/hr for all new large coal-fired plants as of 2015 as this will deter building of new conventional and polluting power plants. It notes, however, that waiting another seven years for that is too long for the climate and the limit will not apply to older plants that continue to pollute. The ONG nonetheless welcomes the powerful signal addressed to the Council, namely that the Community system of emissions trading is not sufficient to stimulate investment in the generation of plants with low carbon content and that strict regulatory measures are desperately needed. The WWF calls on the Council to extend this emissions limit to all industrial installations.
It is the opinion of Greenpeace, CCS detractor, that the norm for performance of carbon fired plants voted by the environment committee is too weak as, in 2008, the cleanest coal-fired plants may emit less than 350 gm of CO2 per kw/hr.
The NGO considers that, with this vote, the environment committee is “keeping the EU back in the 19th century” and points out that renewable energy combined with energy efficiency could allow the EU to reduce its CO2 emissions by 80% and cover half of its energy needs by 2050. (A.N./transl.jl).