The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has appointed Dr Jeff Chapman as the Chair of the new Carbon Capture and Storage Cost Reduction Task Force.
As laid out in the CCS Roadmap last month, the Task Force has been set up to help move CCS towards a point where it can be cost competitive with other low carbon technologies. DECC hopes the Task Force will achieve this by the early 2020s.
Dr Chapman is Chief Executive of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, the body which represents the UK’s CCS industry. He said:
“I am delighted and honoured to accept the position of Chair for the CCS Cost Reduction Task Force. CCS will be an essential and cost-effective technology solution in the mitigation of climate change. Similar to other low-carbon technologies, CCS will incur additional costs in the early years of deployment, but with good planning and optimisation it will be possible to drive down costs in a short timeframe. The sooner we set about this task the sooner we will get on track for cost-efficient decarbonisation of power and industry.”
The Task Force is charged with advising Government and industry on the steps required to reduce the cost of carbon capture and storage in time for Government’s next wave of projects under the CCS commercialisation Programme.
Energy Minister Charles Hendry said: “It is essential that the Task Force has strong leadership and the confidence of the CCS industry and so I am delighted that Dr Chapman has accepted the role of Chair. The Task Force will play a vital role in enabling Government and industry to deliver cost competitive CCS.
“The Task Force is a key opportunity for industry to put forward their views on what we need to do next to ensure that the costs of CCS comes down, enabling the technology to compete with other low carbon options by the early 2020s. I look forward to receiving the Task Force’s report early next year.”