Greener Jobs Alliance

A Primer on Carbon Capture and Storage Pipelines

Slide courtesy of Andrew Boswell

By Ellen Robottom and Tahir Latif

The first of a two-part blog on the government’s controversial plans to invest over £21Bn in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)1, focusing on the dangers and hazards to local communities of the proposed UK pipeline implementations.

The GJA Steering Group meeting in February was given a presentation by Andrew Boswell, a leading technical and legal expert on matter relating to CCS, on the potential dangers of CO2 pipelines2.  The image above, taken from that presentation, shows the complexity of the arrangements and the plant required to take CO2 from capture to storage.  The full slide set of Andrew’s presentation needs to be seen by as many people as possible to grasp the full range of issues and can be found here.

Click to view presentation

The key point taken from the presentation is that while there will arguably be a need in the future for technology that removes and stores already-existing carbon3, that place does NOT include green-lighting the indefinitely continued use of fossil fuels, i.e. it does not provide a free pass for the fossil fuel companies to continue business as usual extractivism or negate the urgency of a rapid switch to renewables.  Where it is needed, it is to solve a problem, not to allow that problem to continue and become worse.

However, CCS is a key component of the government’s climate change strategy as outlined in the report Unlocking the benefits of the clean energy economy, published in October 2025. Where in the UK the proposed CCS facilities are to be sited can be clearly seen in Slide 13 of Andrew’s presentation, including all areas of the North Sea. 

One of then proposed sites is the ‘Peak Cluster’, aimed at carbon removal from cement and lime production4, in the East Irish Sea just off the coast near Liverpool, currently in its pre-planning consultation stage5.  This has prompted a Letter to Ed Miliband via local MP Matthew Patrick, sent by Mike Vaughn, Managing Director of Red Rocks Nursing Home but effectively on behalf of the whole community around the Wirral.

The letter notes that ‘CCS applied to cement and lime production is widely recognised as one of the highest cost abatement pathways per tonne of CO2 avoided’ and that ‘while the probability of [pipeline] rupture may be low, the consequences are potentially severe’.  This is underlined by the case studies shown in Andrew Boswell’s slide set, with Slide 3 graphically depicting what such consequences actually look like.

Mike’s letter also highlights the dangers of situating such projects in Labour’s preferred PFI/PPP nexus – government money to ‘catalyse’ private investment – which ‘ultimately socialises the long-term risk’ and ‘is difficult to reconcile with intergenerational equity.’

Unfortunately, Reform are jumping on this in certain locations (e.g. the Wirral) in the context of their ‘net stupid’ fake narrative.  This makes it very important that we frame our critique firmly in an understanding that we are in a really dire situation with accelerating climate change and that this is not going to be the solution we need.  More than that, the real solutions are things (good jobs in the renewables and other sectors) that help with cost of living rather than placing all the burden on already stretched households.

Part 2 of this blog will deal in more detail with then issue of jobs, with reference to a forthcoming article co-authored by GJA’s Ellen Robottom and Aled Dilwyn Fisher from Oil Change International titled ‘Jobswashing and Greenwashing: The dubious claims of Labour’s carbon capture gamble’ and to a survey of MPs that has been carried out by our friends at Platform on the role of CCS in the energy system and in employment strategy.

The introductory paragraph to the article states: ‘Beware government and corporate claims of a new industrial revolution and thousands of jobs being created by Labour’s carbon capture projects. It doesn’t take much to see that this jobswashing of a failed, extremely expensive technology favoured by the oil and gas industry is just as misleading as the greenwashing that comes with it.’  This is the essence of the false narrative around CCS, and we will return to the jobs aspects of the debate in the second blog.

Notes

1. Thus far, £9bn has already been given to specific projects, but the government announced in autumn 2024 that it was committing £21.7bn to CCS. However, a search of the various subsidy schemes suggests that in fact around £50bn of subsidies is being committed to CCS-related schemes.  The Climate Change Committee’s 7th carbon budget advice suggests CCS schemes would require public and private investment of £350bn – £408bn by 2050, with up to £136bn for power stations burning gas, and £128bn for burning biomass with CCS (BECCS).
2. CO2 pipelines are only one aspect of the problem. The key issue for climate is the huge upstream emissions from any application based on using gas, meaning that in effect only one third of the total emissions are available for capture – even if the capture and storage technology worked efficiently, which it never has before and is unlikely to now.
3. The focus needs to be on slashing the emissions now by a combination of avoiding anything that uses fossil fuels, and deep demand reduction measures (which we already largely have the technology to accomplish through electrification and structural changes reducing consumption) but that there will probably still be a need after that to remove residual excess CO2 from the atmosphere using direct capture methods, which will be more advanced by then anyway. Global storage capacity is likely to be quite limited, so we should not waste any of it on storing CO2 from unnecessary fossil fuel burning.
4. Cement and lime produce CO2 as inherent process emissions, the majority of which comes from the chemical reaction involved in production rather than the fuel burning to create the high temperatures needed. It is therefore the industry most cited by the government as needing CCS; however, many argue that alternative technologies are in development – alternative building materials, and methods of recycling cement from concrete, which is where the bulk of it is used – and that demand limitation must also be a key approach. It can be argued that retrofitting with carbon capture, building a major pipeline and storage facilities, locks in an inefficient technology and effectively prevents the move to cleaner technologies that could be accomplished within a similar timescale or less.
5. The Peak Cluster is in the High Peak area which spans parts of Derbyshire, Staffordshire and South Yorkshire, but the pipeline extends from there along the Wirral, where the main protests are occurring.

Further information

Document of background links provided by Andrew Boswell HERE. 

MP Watch | Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Article, Climate Briefing by A Boswell and S Oldridge, June 2025

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The post A Primer on Carbon Capture and Storage Pipelines first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

Cuba fights US sanctions with sunshine, and grit

Photo by Juan Luis Ozaez on Unsplash

The tightened siege on Cuba by the US is an attack on one of the world’s most sustainable societies by one of the least, and one that is trying to lead a charge towards climate catastrophe because, as Marco Rubio put it in his address to the Munich Security Conference, “we are not afraid of climate change”; as if we could deal with the consequences of climate breakdown by being macho about it.

• Cuba has a population of 10.9 million people, less than a thirtieth of that of the United States. 
• It has a per capita carbon footprint of 2.23 tonnes, less than half of the global average of 4.7 tonnes and a sixth that of the United States; not simply because it has a lower per capita income, but because its society is more organised around sustainability. Which is also why, in 2025, with a per capita income an eighth that of the US, life expectancy, at 79.49, was almost half a year longer. 
• It is spending $129 million on its military this year, an 8 thousandth of the 2026 US military budget. 

Yet Donald Trump poses it as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States. This is, as so many Trump statements are, an inversion of reality. The US has been an unusual and extraordinary threat to Cuba and its people since the first sanctions were imposed by President Eisenhower in 1960. This is not an aberration for the Global South. The Lancet estimated last year that the deaths caused by sanctions imposed around the world by the US and EU have killed 38 million people since 1970 – about half a million a year. But it is peculiarly long term: 65 years of relentless pressure, punctuated by military adventures like the Bay of Pigs, assassination plots and ruthless misinformation campaigns.

The current intensification of this siege, primarily focused on energy sources, having cut off 75% of its oil supplies in the last month, has had to be met by emergency measures. It is striking how many of these consolidate and accelerate Cuba’s path to sustainability; while seeking to protect the population as far as possible from the worst impacts and mobilise them to resist. 

Countries around the world that want to avoid a similar vulnerability to a US energy siege in future will be drawing the conclusion that the faster they move to renewable energy, the safer they will be.

In Energy Generation

• The program of installing large photovoltaic solar parks across the country to move towards a situation in which electricity supply can be guaranteed without fuel imports will be maintained. Until last year 83% of electricity was being generated by aging and unreliable oil fired power stations, supplied largely with oil from Venezuela and Mexico that the US has now shut off. Cuba itself only produces about a third of its needs and increases in local production can’t be qualitatively increased, while imports now allowed from the private sector will be important but relatively small scale. Cuba is nevertheless in the first stages of the rapid turn to solar energy that is also gaining momentum across the whole Global South. Last year 55 solar farms capable of generating 1200 MW were built with Chinese assistance. So far their peak generation has been 900MW, about 40% of peak demand. A further 37 solar farms are due to be completed by the end of 2028 to close the gap further. On a smaller scale, 22 wind turbines are being refurbished to generate another 30MW. This will dent the impact of the sanctions, but the sooner more can be built the better.
• At the same time progress is being made towards the installation of 20,000 off grid distributed solar housing systems, including panels and storage batteries including sales to health and education workers of 10,000 of these.
• The delivery and assembly of these systems will be streamlined to “give energy sustainability to 10,000 family centers in the country” and install 5,000 modules in remote communities. These are the last homes that are not connected to the grid; thereby achieving 100% electrification across Cuba.
• During this year another 5,000 systems will be delivered covering centres where the population receives social care, like nursing homes, children’ s homes and community centres.
• New incentives for renewable sources have been introduced so that people who generate electricity can sell it directly to third parties – another consumer, a company, an industry – not just the Electric Union.

Saving fuel 

• There will be a four day week from Monday to Thursday.
• Fuel sales will be monitored to ensure equitable supply.
• Street lights have had to be dimmed.
• Industry will focus on the manufacture, processing and supply of vital chemicals, like those needed to ensure water, oxygen and chlorine quality for the health system and some industrial processes.
• The tourist industry, essential to earning desperately needed foreign exchange, is being concentrated in hubs to save fuel.
• Cultural programming is being adjusted to encourage more local cultural activities in communities and the movement of amateur artists, and measures have been applied to reduce fuel expenditure to allow the National Baseball series, which is currently at the semi final stage, to conclude.
• Fuel will be prioritised to allow the operation of ports and airports to allow in food, fuels, and medical supplies. The transport of disconnected supplies are being grouped together and then moved to optimise fuel use.

Food production 

• Growing more food locally is crucial. There are plans to grow an additional 200,000 hectares of rice and some of these are already planted. Fuel allocation will be prioritised to make this possible.
• Planting a greater variety of crops is being encouraged as is urban and family farming. 
• Renewable energy sources will be used for irrigation and animal traction will be increased.
• Public transport is being reduced to bare essentials- connections between Havana and main provincial centres twice a day and routes in towns restructured.
• Some of the gaps are being filled by electric cycle rickshaws in all areas, which will be regulated by local authorities, as will prices charged by private carriers.

The impact of this siege is grim. With no fuel for rubbish collection, waste is piling up in the streets. The knock on effects of health, even with Cuba’s immensely impressive public health care system, can’t help but be severe. The US is also pressuring other countries to commit self harm by ending their agreements to employ Cuban doctors in their health care system. This earns Cuba foreign exchange but is also a massive contribution to the health and wellbeing of the countries concerned. 

The defiant words of the Deputy Prime Minister, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga: “We are not going to collapse because the Cuban people do not collapse and have demonstrated it throughout our history”  is a call for solidarity from friendly countries, trade unions and movements around the world, from anyone who does not want to see our world thrown backwards into a last frenzy of white racist fossil fuel imperialism of the sort so nakedly expressed by Marco Rubio in Munich. If you haven’t read this speech please do. It’s an eye opener. The climate movement should have no reservations about whose side it is on. 

Contact the Cuba Solidarity Campaign to see what you can do to help.

Paul Atkin

A lot of the information in this blog comes from an article from Cuba Debate, reporting on a round table discussing the measures being taken to resist US sanctions, which you can read in full here.

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