Waisting billions of public funds on a troubled technology

The technologies involved in the capture and storage of CO2 (CCS) are considered the best hope for so called “hard to abate” industries across Europe to cut down their share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Largely subsidised by public funds and heavy publicised, the technologies involved create a complex system of capturing CO2 at the emission source, liquifying, transporting by ship and storing again under the sea bed.

We looked at the first year of Longship, the flagship European project to capture and store CO2, and found out a deeply troubled pilot year, subsidised with billions of Euros in public money. [Published June 2026]