Capturing Carbon Dioxide at Longannet

Scottish Power, National grid and Shell are proposing to capture carbon dioxide that would otherwise be pumped into the air from a power station in Longannet, Fife, in Scotland along a natural gas pipe line that runs through Fife, Falkirk, Stirling, Perth, Angus and Aberdeenshire and thence into the old depleted gas wells under the North sea from which natural gas has been extracted.

Three pipelines and energy security

Six years ago work started on three pipelines that would carry oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The route was designed to bypass Russia and Iran, which were thought to be potentially unfriendly to western oil and national energy interests. BP led the consortium of pipe line builders and the three pipelines were designed to carry more than a million barrels of oil every day of the year.

Energy in the pipeline

Malcolm Wicks is the Energy Minister. This month he is turning a valve in South Wales which completes the final stage of a pipeline which has been built stretching 196 miles from Milford Haven to Gloucestershire. The pipeline will carry gas from Milford Haven but as there is no natural gas there it will use liquefied natural gas fuel which will be landed in giant tankers at the port and then converted into gas and sent along the pipeline. It has taken three years to build the pipeline and cost over £1 billion, but as we do need energy we now have a pipeline that will be able to carry one fifth of our gas needs.