London-based waste management company Cory has received a long-awaited governmental approval to construct a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at the company’s Riverside energy-from-waste facilities in Belvedere.
Four years after announcing the intent to build CCS at this site, the company has now received a green light on its Development Consent Order application from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, officially setting this plan in motion.
As part of this ambitious project, Cory estimates that the CCS system will be able to capture around 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions on an annual basis.
The company will leverage its maritime experience of more than 200 years of operations on the River Thames to transport liquified carbon dioxide captured at the Riverside location for permanent storage under the North Sea via a ship.
Cory CEO Dougie Sutherland called this approach “the most advanced non-pipeline transportation CCS project in the UK.”
He commented, “By using ships to transport the carbon that we capture, we are not only making use of London’s ‘green highway,’ the River Thames, but also opening up decarbonization pathways for other emitters, ensuring that geography is no barrier to decarbonization.”
This project will represent the largest waste-to-energy with CCS initiative in the UK, making a significant decarbonization contribution towards London’s climate targets and generating high-quality engineered carbon removals.
In 2023, Cory announced a partnership with Viking CCS, the Humber-based CO2 transportation and storage network led by Harbour Energy and non-operating partner bp, and the UK’s largest port operator, Associated British Ports (ABP).
Relevant: Cory To Build The World’s Largest Carbon Capture Plant For Energy From Waste
Under this collaboration, the three entities agreed to work together on the transport and storage of shipped CO2 emissions from Cory’s energy-from-waste facilities.
At that time, Cory also announced that it has committed to working exclusively with Viking CCS to explore the potential transportation and storage of captured CO2 into the Viking CO2 transportation and storage project via ABP’s Port of Immingham.
As part of this plan, the captured CO2 would be shipped to the Port of Immingham, then transported via a new CO2 import terminal to be permanently stored within the Viking depleted gas fields in the southern North Sea.
Commenting on the government’s approval of Cory’s CCS project, Viking CCS shared, “We are proud to work closely with Cory so that in the future, their captured carbon can be stored in the Viking store in the Southern North Sea. This is a real-world example of regions working together to deliver economic growth for the UK.“
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