The UK Government has insisted a £1billion fund to prove the benefits of carbon capture and storage technology will not be axed in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review.
Four schemes were shortlisted for the £1billion competition to develop CCS technology last October, including at an existing gas plant in Peterhead and a new coal-powered station in Grangemouth.
Labour had claimed the CCS fund was at risk as the coalition government continues to cut public pending.
Tom Greatrex, the shadow energy minister said he had obtained a document from the Cabinet Office last year which suggests the money had not all been available for the past three years.
But the Energy and climate change minister Greg Barker dismissed the claims as “baseless scaremongering”.
“The fact of the matter is, we are going forward with the CCS programme, it’s going to be successful unlike Labour’s failed attempts at CCS,” he told the Commons.
“We have two preferred bidders in place and it’s backed by £1billion, putting the UK at the front of the global race for carbon capture and storage.”
The £1billion competition had to be relaunched last year after previous plans for the technology at Scottish Power’s coal plant at Longannet, Fife, were abandoned.
