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EU flagship programme

2008-08-11
The European Commission plans to launch a Flagship Programme covering 10 to 12 CCS demonstration projects in the EU. The idea is to demonstrate the carbon capture, transport and storage (CSS) technology on an industrial scale. Poland will try to build one or two plants of this type as part of that programme.
REKLAMA

Deputy Minister of the Economy Adam Szejnfeld: “We would like to have two of the CCS demonstration plants planned by the European Commission built in Poland. As a country with rich coal resources we have to be fully involved in implementing the flagship programme. It follows from preliminary estimates that immense financial outlays will be needed to build such plants. But we have to bear the costs in order to satisfy growing electric energy needs and meet ecological demands”.

EU deputy Jerzy Buzek: “There are three possible ways of financing the project in Poland: credits from the European Investment Bank, direct subsidies or issue credits for companies building the plants. It is very important that the government and energy companies give a clear signal that they are determined to take part in the EU programme”.

Director Zbigniew Kamieński of the Energy Department at the Ministry of the Economy: "For the Ministry, the issue of reducing CO2 emissions represents a priority task and a challenge which must be met. It is a task referred to as one of prime importance in the draft of the “Energy policy up to 2030”. We hope that funds for building demonstration plants will for the most part come from the EU”.

Paweł Urbański, management board vice-president for Investments and Development of the Polish Energy Group: ”Our company is determined to participate in this undertaking. We are currently building an 850 MW unit in Bełchatów using technologies facilitating carbon capture. We would like this unit to become part of the EU flagship programme”.
The Brussels Regional Office of the Śląskie province announced that one of the 12 EU demonstration projects is to be built in Silesia.
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ESA, the Surveillance Authority of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) adopted a trail-blazing decision not to raise objections to the Norwegian government’s public aid for a big CCS technology venture in Mongstadt. Welcoming ESA’s decision, Andris Piebalgs, EU Commissioner for Energy said: “This decision provides an important precedent for considerations of state aid cases related to projects necessary for further advancement of CCS technologies, foremost in coal and gas-fired power plants”
ESA’s decision will encourage other European governments to earmark public funds for CCS technology development. Until now Britain was the only EU country with a concrete and significant government programme endorsing CCS technology.

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