White Rose Credit: White Rose

Despite being the sole candidate for the €300 million available, these funds will not be made payable until the UK government guarantees matched funding. In December the UK government announced that it would provide FEED funding over an up to two year programme of engineering, planning and financial work to finalise and de-risk proposals ahead of final investment decisions and moving on to the construction phase (read more here). There has already been much delay in the lead up to the point of this award, which is one of the stages of the UK government’s own €1.2 billion CCS funding competition.

Liberal MEP Chris Davies, who has led work on CCS at the European Parliament, told the UK’s Yorkshire Post that the UK government has nothing to lose by making this support: “The Government has got £250m to gain and absolutely nothing to lose from expressing its firm backing for the White Rose project,” and continued: “The EU rules say that this is needed if the money is to be allocated, but it is not legally binding and the UK could back out at any time if unexpected difficulties are encountered.”

Read more about the White Rose project here.