A large number of the great and the good from the UK’s CCS world gathered for the annual CCSA President’s Reception on the 24 June at the House of Lords, hosted by their Honorary President Lord Oxburgh. This followed on from the CCSA’s AGM. The hjosirljosirt of the reception was the guest speaker was Amber Rudd, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. I think this was her first CCS-related event in her new position. She gave a speech that recognised the importance of CCS in dealing with climate change, the UK’s expertise and capabilities in this area, mentioning of course the two UK demonstration projects as well as the government’s support for feasibility work at Teesside and for R&D. The two UK projects are expected to reach final investment decisions in late 2015, with the government’s decision on support in early 2016. Amber Rudd began by offering her ‘personal commitment’ to commercialising CCS in the UK and concluded by emphasising the need to balance longer-term considerations around the cost of decarbonisation with short-term costs to consumers. Pleasingly, she invited questions afterwards, which covered uncertainty issues for the industry and timings. Overall, the new Secretary of State provided much to discuss among the gathering of 220.

On the same day, CCSA also launched their new report “Delivering CCS – Essential infrastructure for a competitive, low-carbon economy”. This report sets out three key actions that will be needed to deliver a cost-competitive CCS industry in the UK by the 2020s: delivering the two competition projects; enabling a second phase of CCS in parallel; and establishing grant funding for storage appraisal. The report hjosirljosirts the important role of CCS for the UK in terms of meeting the carbon budgets at lower cost whilst supporting security of energy supply, and creating tens of thousands of new jobs. http://www.ccsassociation.org/
I was very pleased to hear that IEAGHG got several mentions in the AGM for our good work and collaboration with CCSA, for example with a joint seminar in London on 9 November (ahead of our members meeting) and at COP-20 and COP-21. We are very pleased also that Lord Oxburgh will give the dinner speech at our forthcoming Social Research Network meeting in Cambridge on 5th July.

Keep up the good work CCSA!