IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v38y2010i11p6695-6702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

'Capture ready' regulation of fossil fuel power plants - Betting the UK's carbon emissions on promises of future technology

Author

Listed:
  • Markusson, Nils
  • Haszeldine, Stuart

Abstract

Climate change legislation requires emissions reductions, but the market shows interest in investing in new fossil fuelled power plants. The question is whether capture ready policy can reconcile these interests. The term 'capture ready' has been used a few years by the UK Government when granting licences for fossil fuelled power plants, but only recently has the meaning of the term been defined. The policy has been promoted as a step towards CCS and as an insurance against carbon lock-in. This paper draws on literature on technology lock-in and on regulation of technology undergoing development. Further, versions of the capture readiness concept proposed to date are compared. Capture readiness requirements beyond the minimum criterion of space on the site for capture operations are explored. This includes integration of capture and power plant, downstream operations, overall system integration and regulation of future retrofitting. Capture readiness comes with serious uncertainties and is no guarantee that new-built fossil plants will be abatable or abated in the future. As a regulatory strategy, it has been over-promised in the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Markusson, Nils & Haszeldine, Stuart, 2010. "'Capture ready' regulation of fossil fuel power plants - Betting the UK's carbon emissions on promises of future technology," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 6695-6702, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:11:p:6695-6702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(10)00503-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Unruh, Gregory C. & Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier, 2006. "Globalizing carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1185-1197, July.
    2. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    3. Geels, Frank W., 2004. "From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6-7), pages 897-920, September.
    4. Unruh, Gregory C., 2000. "Understanding carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 817-830, October.
    5. Dosi, Giovanni, 1993. "Technological paradigms and technological trajectories : A suggested interpretation of the determinants and directions of technical change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 102-103, April.
    6. Gibbins, Jon & Chalmers, Hannah, 2008. "Preparing for global rollout: A `developed country first' demonstration programme for rapid CCS deployment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 501-507, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mo, Jian-Lei & Schleich, Joachim & Zhu, Lei & Fan, Ying, 2015. "Delaying the introduction of emissions trading systems—Implications for power plant investment and operation from a multi-stage decision model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 255-264.
    2. Stewart Russell & Nils Markusson & Vivian Scott, 2012. "What will CCS demonstrations demonstrate?," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 651-668, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rebekah Brown & Richard Ashley & Megan Farrelly, 2011. "Political and Professional Agency Entrapment: An Agenda for Urban Water Research," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(15), pages 4037-4050, December.
    2. Foxon, Timothy J., 2011. "A coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2258-2267.
    3. Jukka Luhas & Mirja Mikkilä & Ville Uusitalo & Lassi Linnanen, 2019. "Product Diversification in Sustainability Transition: The Forest-Based Bioeconomy in Finland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-19, June.
    4. Vanloqueren, Gaëtan & Baret, Philippe V., 2009. "How agricultural research systems shape a technological regime that develops genetic engineering but locks out agroecological innovations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 971-983, July.
    5. Lettice, Fiona & Smart, Palie & Baruch, Yehuda & Johnson, Mark, 2012. "Navigating the impact-innovation double hurdle: The case of a climate change research fund," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1048-1057.
    6. Steffen S. Bettin, 2020. "Electricity infrastructure and innovation in the next phase of energy transition—amendments to the technology innovation system framework," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 371-395, November.
    7. Safarzyńska, Karolina & Frenken, Koen & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2012. "Evolutionary theorizing and modeling of sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1011-1024.
    8. Markard, Jochen & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Analysis of complementarities: Framework and examples from the energy transition," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 63-75.
    9. Foxon, Timothy J. & Pearson, Peter J.G. & Arapostathis, Stathis & Carlsson-Hyslop, Anna & Thornton, Judith, 2013. "Branching points for transition pathways: assessing responses of actors to challenges on pathways to a low carbon future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 146-158.
    10. Albert Faber & Koen Frenken, 2008. "Models in evolutionary economics and environmental policy: Towards an evolutionary environmental economics," Innovation Studies Utrecht (ISU) working paper series 08-15, Utrecht University, Department of Innovation Studies, revised Apr 2008.
    11. Simon Shackley & Michael Thompson, 2012. "Lost in the mix: will the technologies of carbon dioxide capture and storage provide us with a breathing space as we strive to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewables?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 101-121, January.
    12. Planko & Jacqueline Cramer & Maryse Chappin & Marko Hekkert, 2014. "Strategic collective system building by firms who launch sustainability innovations," Innovation Studies Utrecht (ISU) working paper series 14-04, Utrecht University, Department of Innovation Studies, revised Sep 2014.
    13. Francesco Lamperti & Giovanni Dosi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Alessandro Sapio, 2018. "And then he wasn't a she : Climate change and green transitions in an agent-based integrated assessment model," Working Papers hal-03443464, HAL.
    14. Lamperti, F. & Dosi, G. & Napoletano, M. & Roventini, A. & Sapio, A., 2020. "Climate change and green transitions in an agent-based integrated assessment model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    15. Geels, Frank W., 2010. "Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 495-510, May.
    16. Genus, Audley & Coles, Anne-Marie, 2008. "Rethinking the multi-level perspective of technological transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1436-1445, October.
    17. Choi, Hyundo & Anadón, Laura Díaz, 2014. "The role of the complementary sector and its relationship with network formation and government policies in emerging sectors: The case of solar photovoltaics between 2001 and 2009," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 80-94.
    18. Damien Bazin & Nouri Chtourou & Amna Omri, 2019. "Risk management and policy implications for concentrating solar power technology investments in Tunisia," Post-Print hal-02061788, HAL.
    19. Geels, Frank W., 2004. "From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6-7), pages 897-920, September.
    20. Sandén, Björn A. & Hillman, Karl M., 2011. "A framework for analysis of multi-mode interaction among technologies with examples from the history of alternative transport fuels in Sweden," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 403-414, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:11:p:6695-6702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.