Acorn carbon capture funding cut: Pigs can’t fly

The UK Government budget today announced it was not handing over £200million in public money to the failing Acorn capture carbon project in North East Scotland.

The project has faced years of delays and failures, with its leading shareholder Storegga pulling out in December 2025 and seemingly unable to sell its stake. Acorn has never made it off the drawing board; no carbon has been successfully stored in Scotland. 

The news comes the day after the Scottish Government’s approval of a new gas burning power station at Peterhead which requires carbon capture to function. Climate campaigners say this “transparent attempt to shift blame to Westminster” for the Scottish Government’s long term over reliance on the unproven technology.  

Friends of the Earth Scotland’s head of campaigns, Caroline Rance said:  

“The Scottish Government’s cynical approval of the Peterhead carbon capture project the day before Acorn’s funding was rightly cut is a transparent attempt to shift blame to Westminster for its own failures. 

“Scottish Ministers have repeatedly chosen to be over reliant on the pipe dream of unproven carbon capture and now there is a massive sinkhole in their climate plans. Scottish Ministers must finally take responsibility for their carbon capture delusion when they should have been prioritising real climate solutions that would improve people’s lives such as home insulation and improving bus services. 

“It has been over 20 years of delays, failures and sucking up public money and the so called carbon capture industry has not stored a drop of carbon. No amount of public money can make this pig fly. 

“The choice for Ministers is to continue burning expensive, dangerous fossil fuels or to embrace renewables that can bring down bills and deliver wider public benefits. This fantasy should never have been peddled to oil workers, who need a credible plan for support and retraining that can move them into truly green jobs.”

“Carbon capture is greenwash on an epic scale. Politicians keep falling for it because its easier than standing up to the fossil fuel companies who are destroying our climate and have robbed us through obscene energy bills for years.”