Britain rolls out CCS short-list

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LONDON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Britain unveiled a list of four projects selected to bid for a $1.6 billion carbon-capture and storage competition but a critic said it's too little, too late.

British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Davey announced the government chose four projects among eight bidders to compete in the next phase of the CCS competition.

"The projects we have chosen to take forward have all shown that they have the potential to kick-start the creation of a new CCS industry in the U.K., but further discussions are needed to ensure we deliver value-for-money for taxpayers," he said.

Davey said the projects were selected in an effort to deliver cost-effective CCS technology by the next decade. A decision on the next phase in the competition, he said, would be announced next year.

The International Energy Agency said CCS technology could cut carbon dioxide emissions from the industrial sector as much as 4 gigatons by the middle of the century.

Tom Greatrex, the energy minister from the opposition Labor Party, said Davey's announcement only pushed support for CCS "into the long grass."

"Ministers have still not said how much money the government will allow for each project and when or how many of these projects they expect to survive to the end of the process," he was quoted by the BBC as saying.