Leading figures in the Humber have written to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, urging them to back major decarbonisation projects in the Budget.
They describe the region as at the vanguard of delivering on the UK’s carbon capture and storage ambition, in the open letter to Jeremy Hunt and Grant Shapps.
It comes as the leading politicians revealed how the technical solution for hard-to-abate industrial solutions will be backed significantly.
Richard Gwilliam, chair of the Humber Energy Board, was joined by local enterprise partnership chairs James Newman OBE and Pat Doody, ABP Humber director and freeport chair Simon Bird and CBI Humber Cluster director Jonathan Oxley as signatories as the case was once again stated.
They want to ensure major infrastructure projects are included in the ‘Track One’ envelope from the government’s cluster sequencing process.
“We write to you to highlight the opportunity that decarbonisation projects in our region will have in levelling up the North, promoting sustainable, economic growth for the region, as well as creating a world-leading beacon for how to decarbonise a major industrial cluster,” they wrote. “Decarbonising the Humber, the industrial cluster emitting more CO2 than any other in the country, is essential to achieve net zero. It is also critical to safeguard one in 10 existing regional jobs as well as deliver continued economic growth enabling a sustainable future in the region for generations to come. The Humber presents the UK’s biggest decarbonisation opportunity, providing world-leading infrastructure and investment, alongside innovation and technology that can be replicated around the world.”
Highlighting its involvement in Track One through the involvement in East Coast Cluster, a project linking Humber and Tees CCS ambition, the letter continued: “We believe it is critical that transformational carbon capture and storage, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and hydrogen projects in our region are now selected as Track One projects to maintain momentum and continue to build investor confidence that both the Humber and the UK continue to be the best place in the world to invest in decarbonisation opportunities.”
Welcoming the £20 billion commitment with the aim of capturing and storing 20 to 30 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030, and the recognition that the UK is one of the most attractive prospective carbon capture markets on earth, they added: “With a wealth of existing industry with ambitious decarbonisation plans along with access to 80 per cent of the UK’s licenced CO2 storage sites off the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coasts, the Humber is at the vanguard of delivering the UK’s CCS ambition.
“The region already has the employment base, the infrastructure, knowledge and expertise to be the UK’s flag bearer for decarbonisation, it now needs recognition from Government to realise this opportunity.”
It follows last week’s launch of the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan and earlier publication of the Humber 2030 Vision, a copy of which was included with the letter. They provide a how and what guide to the transformational plan for the region, with £15 billion of capital investment highlighted, spanning from Drax in the west to Easington and Grainthorpe in the east, taking in Keadby, Scunthorpe, Immingham and Saltend, with power, energy intensive processing, refining and steelmaking all captured, and hydrogen fuel-switching included.
The Humber Energy Board is a public-private sector partnership that unites industry with civic leaders on the shared ambition to transform the region through decarbonisation, ensuring pan-Humber issues still have a single voice following the splitting of the original Humber LEP.
