Meeting the challenge of combating climate change presents opportunities as well as risks. While we have to move to renewable forms of energy, fossil fuels will continue to be our main source of energy over the next few decades. This gives us the opportunity to explore processes and technologies that reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) when fossil fuels are used.

Developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) at large scale is one of those opportunities. Capturing CO₂ emitted at source, and then storing it safely deep in depleted gas fields and other geological locations offshore, provides a means of managing our carbon emissions.CO2Sense, together with Yorkshire Forward, are fully committed to developing a CCS infrastructure in Yorkshire and the Humber.

A study commissioned by Yorkshire Forward concluded that building a viable CO₂ transportation network would be one of the most practical steps to attract investment and so reduce the costs of CCS.The system could transport approximately 320 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, 850 million tonnes by 2040, and may store 1,500 million tonnes of CO₂ by 2050. To give a sense of scale, 1,500 million tonnes is equivalent to the emissions from all the present cars in the UK for 75 years.CO2Sense believes with the right public and private sector investment, it is possible to implement the initial phase of this network by 2015.