EDINBURGH, Scotland, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The Scottish government and local companies hope to exploit declining North Sea reserves by moving forward with incentives for carbon-capture technology.
The Scottish Parliament sees carbon-capture, a process to strip greenhouse gases and store them in depleted reserves, as a compliment to the regional push for alternative energy as oil and gas reserves in the North Sea run dry.
The British Department of Energy and Climate Change predicts carbon capture and storage technology will generate as much as $6.5 billion by 2030.
ScottishPower, a company owned by Spanish energy group Iberdrola, said the North Sea region could be the world leader in CCS, which can cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 90 percent, the Financial Times reports.
"There is the potential to (form) an industry on the same scale as North Sea oil - and we will invest in Scotland and the UK to help realize this potential," said Ignacio Galan, chairman at Iberdrola.
The Scottish Parliament unveiled a report that finds the Scottish waters of the North Sea could hold all of the carbon dioxide emitted from regional coal plants during the next 200 years.
Executives say the pace of CCS-backed plans is slow, but they hope regional cooperation between government and corporate interests could move the technology forward.
