Letter on carbon: Carbon capture’s new power play

Rising power demand has boosted the prospects for CCS as some more established transition technologies come under pressure

CCS as a tool to cut emissions was a latecomer to the line-up of big transition technologies assembled to drive the push for net zero. Its chequered history in Europe, where several pilot plants failed, and a broad lack of public acceptance confined it to the sidelines for years, while renewables, hydrogen, e-fuels and, above all, electrification dominated the early transition investment landscape.  That is, until policymakers realised that, without CCS, they had little or no chance of making it to net zero—or even “near zero”, as a sceptical TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne described the new reality around global emissions at the recent IE Week conference in London. The UK’s Climate Chang