Making Money Out of Thin Air — and Sending You the Bill

For generations, carbon dioxide released by cement works was treated as an unavoidable by-product of producing the materials needed to build Britain. It had no commercial value. Nobody owned it, traded it or expected households to pay for burying it beneath the seabed.

Net Zero has changed that.

Through carbon targets, emissions trading and government-backed carbon-capture contracts, an unwanted gas is being transformed into a valuable financial commodity. Companies may receive public support for capturing it, pipeline operators can charge for transporting it, storage companies can charge for burying it, and investors can receive a return on the infrastructure required to make the entire system work.

The public, meanwhile, receives no additional cement, no additional electricity and no improvement in energy security. It receives the bill.

The Government’s published industrial carbon-capture model allows Exchequer-funded payments for every tonne captured. Those payments can cover operating expenses, pipeline and storage charges, repayment of capital expenditure and a return for investors. Contracts may last for up to 15 years.

Peak Cluster brings this extraordinary financial structure into sharp focus. Almost 200 kilometres of countryside could be crossed by a new carbon dioxide pipeline connecting four cement and lime works to an offshore storage system beneath the Irish Sea. The combined Peak Cluster and Morecambe storage development is associated with approximately £5 billion of investment.

Carbon dioxide is also around 50 per cent denser than air. Although it normally disperses outdoors, a major concentrated release can flow towards lower ground and accumulate in hollows, trenches and poorly ventilated spaces, potentially displacing oxygen. That makes the route, surrounding terrain and emergency planning matters of public safety—not inconveniences to be dismissed as opposition to progress.

A gas that previously had no monetary value has therefore become the foundation of an entire subsidy-backed industry. The emitters can be supported, the pipeline can earn regulated revenue, the storage operator can be paid and investors can receive their return.

Net Zero has discovered how to make money out of thin air.

Then it sends the bill to everyone else.