In a major climate change initiative, the European Commission will tomorrow (Thursday) present EU Member States with its proposals for funding seven specific carbon capture and storage demonstration (CCS) projects across Europe.
 
Schemes in Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK are all likely to secure funding of up to a maximum of €180m from a total budget of €1.08 billion allocated towards CCS in the EU's economic recovery programme.
 
Eleven applications for support funding were submitted by the mid-July deadline, and the Commission will tomorrow tell a meeting of national experts (the FP7 Energy Programme Committee) which seven should be approved.
 
Member States will have two weeks in which to register any objections before the proposals are submitted to the European Parliament.   MEPs are likely to accept the plan without dissent.
 
CCS offers the potential for curbing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants and major industrial installations.  Instead of being released into the atmosphere, it is intended that CO2 shall be captured and then piped for permanent storage in rocks deep underground that formerly contained natural gas or oil.
 
Coal and gas power stations are responsible for 40% of all Europe's CO2 emissions, and with the use of both increasing many experts believe that without CCS it will be impossible to curb global warming.
 
However, although the technology has been proven in a number of pilot projects across the world it has never been demonstrated on the scale necessary if hopes for it are to be realised.
 
British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies steered CCS legislation through the European Parliament last year, and has welcomed the announcement.
 
He said:
 
"This is a major step forward.  We have had a lot of fine words about CCS but only now is approval being given to some significant projects that will help develop the technology and bring down its costs.
 
"We will not solve the problem of global warming without the use of CCS, so many hopes rest on the success of the projects now being approved."