Acknowledging today’s announcement of the North Sea Transition Authority’s offer of awards for 20 carbon storage licences at offshore sites, including some near Aberdeen, Professor John Underhill, Director of the University of Aberdeen’s Centre for Energy Transition said:
“I welcome today’s announcement that offers have gone to operators who have taken part in the UK’s first competitive carbon storage licensing round.
“To meet our emissions targets and reduce our industrial and energy-related greenhouse emissions, there is a need to have numerous carbon stores. The number of awards and firm commitments in today’s announcement represents a step change in the effort to decarbonise the UK.
“Despite current fiscal conditions I anticipate all the bidders will accept the offers that have been made, and it will be essential to critically evaluate and appraise each site to ensure the ones that progress are the best.
"Here at the University of Aberdeen we are undertaking key research to test, forensically analyse and verify subsurface sites and we expect that this work will assist in decisions over which projects progress.
“Provided the conditions are favourable, I see it as perfectly feasible to achieve the first injection and storage within ten years, which has already been ably demonstrated in Denmark.”