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Carbon capture at Peterhead
21/06/2007
UK Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling has written to the Scottish Government on the proposed Peterhead carbon capture project saying that he does 'not consider that it is possible to revisit the proposals for the [carbon capture] competition.
Scottish Ministers have approved planning permission for the project although the main operators BP have announced that they do not intend to pursue it because of uncertainty over support from the Department of Trade and Industry.
First Minister Alex Salmond commented:
"This is deeply disappointing, the Westminster government are missing one of the great industrial and environmental opportunitinities of our times by allowing the timetable for the competition to slip so carelessly.
"What makes it particularly infuriating is the speed with which Aberdeenshire Council and MSPs moved to support this important project and potentially planet saving technology.
"Only Westminster was asleep on the job and has dealt the project a near fatal blow. Alistair Darling is in severe danger of being known as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry who flung away the opportunity of a world lead in one of the dominant technologies of the century.
"It is true that there will be other carbon capture projects in future but London is flinging away a world leading opportinity for Peterhead and Scotland."
The decarbonised fuels project at Peterhead would be the first industrial scale project in the world to combine three separate technologies - hydrogen production, power generation and carbon capture and storage - to generate electricity using hydrogen from natural gas.