The gamble by John Swinney and SNP ministers on carbon capture technology

During the general election campaign and since Mr Swinney has re-entered office, the SNP has softened its stance on fossil fuels since the days of Nicola Sturgeon and COP26. The Scottish Government’s long-delayed energy strategy will give us a true picture of whether SNP ministers want to speed up the inevitable decline of the North Sea oil and gas sector.

The SNP Government has clutched to the Acorn carbon capture and storage project as a magic bullet to cut carbon emissions and let the oil and gas sector continue extracting fossil fuels. The technology has not properly been demonstrated to work at commercial scale. It could be a recipe for disaster.

Mr Swinney has insisted “carbon capture and storage will play a huge role in Scotland’s net-zero future”. He said: “The Scottish Government is wholly committed to supporting the Acorn project, which will take advantage of our access to vast CO2 storage potential and our opportunities to repurpose existing oil and gas infrastructure.”

When then prime minister Rishi Sunak visited Peterhead this time last year to announce his government was belatedly supporting the project, he pretty much admitted it might not work. Mr Sunak said “if we can get that technology to work and to bring the cost down”, it could be great.

In principle, carbon is stopped from entering the atmosphere and captured and stored in the seabed. This process allows fossil fuels to be burnt but, in theory, does not contribute to the climate crisis. It almost sounds too good to be true.

The Scottish Government’s strategy for cutting climate targets is in a mess after SNP ministers confirmed the 2030 target to cut emissions by 75 per cent is no longer possible. The reliance on carbon capture in the last, now out-of-date, strategy is one of many reasons why that vow is being scrapped.

The Scottish Government had estimated 5.7Mt of carbon could be removed from the atmosphere by 2032 through negative emissions technologies (NETs) such as carbon capture and 3.8Mt by 2030. But a Government study snuck out last year bluntly concluded “the maximum negative emissions technologies potential achievable in Scotland in 2030 is 2.2MtCO2”.

We are still awaiting an updated climate change plan from SNP ministers, promised in November, that will have to show how and when Scotland will stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere.

It is clear there was an over-reliance on carbon capture for that now doomed 2030 target. Despite calls from experts for SNP ministers to draw up alternatives in case carbon capture falls flat, that has not happened.

Reaching net zero will have to place some trust in new and emerging technologies. But the 2030 target shambles should give SNP ministers a warning that being unrealistic and using untested technologies as a magic bullet could spell disaster.