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A plan to position Scotland as the world leader in carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been published.

The carbon capture and storage roadmap, produced by the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise, is a comprehensive set of actions to put Scotland at the forefront of CCS development. These include:

• Setting out a vision for CCS in Scotland including aiming to develop a number of demonstration projects
• Maximising EU and UK support for Scotland's ambitions
• Developing of an offshore carbon licensing regime
• Identification of the skills and training needs to match industry demand

Energy Minister Jim Mather said:

"Scotland has all the attributes to become a world leader in carbon capture. The North Sea alone has enough capacity to store emissions from industrial coal-fired plants for the next 200 years - a capacity greater than Netherlands, Denmark and Germany combined.

"Scotland already has elements of the required onshore and offshore infrastructure and our skills in the oil, gas and engineering industries can be utilised to help the industry grow and develop. As a hugely important technology in the fight against climate change, CCS offers Scotland a fantastic platform for low carbon economic growth.

"We now want to see a number of CCS demonstration projects developed in Scotland. Today's plan takes us further down that road by setting out our ambitions and the actions needed if our vision of CCS playing a part in our future energy supply is to be realised.

"The Scottish Government will work with our partners in industry, academia and in the UK Government and Europe to ensure that Scotland can deliver on the opportunities that CCS provides. We have already achieved a significant amount of progress in this area but we know that more needs to be done as we move into the demonstration phase."

This plan builds upon the actions already taken including:

• The funding of research projects
• Liaising with the UK Government and EU to ensure that Scottish based projects have the maximum chance to gain funding for demonstration projects
• Setting up of industry advisory groups including the thermal generation and CCS industry advisory groups
• The development of a suitable regulatory framework for CCS projects

Guidance on how Ministers will determine consents relating to thermal power stations under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 has also been published today. It confirms the Scottish Government position that any new coal-fired station would need to demonstrate carbon capture and storage on at least 300 Megawatts of its capacity from day one and retro-fitting for those stations by no later than 2025, with 100 per cent CCS expected on new builds from 2020.

The first comprehensive study of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to be undertaken in the UK - Opportunities for CO2 Storage Around Scotland - was published in May 2009 by a collaborative partnership between the Scottish Government and partners from industry and academia.

The Scottish Government has contributed £75,000 towards a Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage study to identify potential sites in the North Sea where carbon dioxide can be stored safely.

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