Three of the UK’s energy giants have set out plans to convert a pipeline stretching from Falkirk to Peterhead for the transportation of CO2.

National Grid, along with Scottish Power and Shell UK have made plans to transport the gas as part of of a Carbon Capture and Storage scheme from the Longannet power station in Fife to a site in the North Sea.

CCS is a technology currently under trial in the UK and is one that the Department of Energy and Climate Change believes will help offset the UK’s carbon emissions in the future.

The Longannet power plant, Europe’s third largest, currently produces between seven million and eight million tonnes of CO2 each year. The plant provides energy for two million people and if tweaked to be compatible with CCS could save two million tonnes a year of emissions, while extending the factory’s life.

National Grid has just completed a informing landowners and the general public of its plans to build a new pipeline. They expect construction of the tunnel to start in 2012, with the overall aim to deliver a full CCS scheme in the UK in 2015.

National Grid’s provide information regarding the pipeline at: www.ccsscotland.com