Carbon capture secrecy ‘alarming’ as Minister refuses to release study

Campaigners say it is “alarming” that the Scottish Government are refusing to release the results of a feasibility study into a huge carbon pollution pipeline that was paid for from the public purse.
 
Ministers handed over £2million to National Gas last year to assess whether they could turn an old 280km gas pipeline from Grangemouth in the central belt to St. Fergus, Aberdeenshire into  “Europe’s largest carbon capture pipeline.”
 
The study of the pipeline  was completed in March 2025 but officials have refused to release details of what the study shows, despite campaigners requesting it under Freedom of Information law.
 
A carbon capture pipeline exploded in Mississippi in 2020, hospitalising 49 people. Pure CO2 is an is an asphyxiant, as well as being odourless and colourless which means it difficult to detect when in the air.  CO2 concentrations in the air were so high after the explosion that there was not enough oxygen for vehicle’s internal combustion engine to ignite, hampering the response of emergency services.
 
The controversy comes amidst fresh demands from oil companies for public subsidy for the flailing Acorn carbon capture project in the UK Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review next week. Any further public subsidy for Acorn would benefit major oil companies including Shell who have made £90 billion profits in recent years and Harbour Energy who recently laid off 250 staff despite paying out almost £1 billion to shareholders in the last 3 years.
 
The UK Government has already pledged £22 billion to the carbon capture industry,  a move which the Public Accounts Committee called a “high risk gamble” that will push up household energy bills.
 
The First Minister recently promised to increase the public handout from the Scottish Government for the Acorn project beyond £80million but that is contingent on the UK Government first backing the project.  
 
Climate campaigners argue that CCS is a greenwashing con that politicians have fallen for and are demanding that public support is instead given to climate solutions that we know will work today and can improve the lives- rather than wasted on technology with 50 years of failure behind it. 
 
Friends of the Earth Scotland’s climate campaigner Alex Lee (they/them) said:
 “The public are again being forced to pay for the oil industry’s greenwashing carbon capture plans, and it is deeply alarming that we don’t even get to see what our money has unearthed.

“Plans to run a 280km high pressure carbon pipeline through towns and villages are fraught with danger and uncertainty because this has never been done before in Scotland. Have the people who live along the route of this pipeline proposal been informed of the risks and consulted on these proposals?

“It is a farce that Ministers have been talking up carbon capture for 20 years and only now are they checking whether it would even be feasible to do this.

“When working climate solutions are crying out for funding, there should be no public investment in dodgy scams like carbon capture. Politicians should be backing climate measures that improve lives such as reducing the costs of public transport, insulating tens of thousands of homes and creating secure green jobs in credible green industries.

“CCS has been 50 years of failure, with the only success of the industry being its lobbying operation convincing pliant politicians that next time it will be different. Make no mistake, the key beneficiaries of any funding for the Acorn Project will be major oil companies who have shown they do not care about their workforce and exploit the energy crisis in their ruthless pursuit of profit.”