* Some utilities have given up on CCS because of cost
* Poland, Britain have shown support
* Some environmental groups opposed, some support
By Barbara Lewis
LUXEMBOURG, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Creating European hubs tocapture and store carbon dioxide would be the cheapest route tolow-carbon energy and the only way for some industries to cuttheir emissions, industry and government officials say.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has failed sofar in Europe to draw enough investment.
To overcome that, the Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP), anindustry group that advises the European Commission, haspresented an action plan that includes CCS hubs, straddlingindustries and even national borders, to allow economies ofscale.
"Without CCS, the cost of decarbonising the power sectorcould be 2 to 4 trillion euros ($2.3-$4.5 trillion) higher andsome energy-intensive industries would not be able todecarbonise at all," ZEP said in the plan published onWednesday.
"CCS lends itself to being developed across clusters ofemitters and using clusters of stores."
ZEP's modelling found CCS could reduce the cost of Europeanpower by 20 to 50 percent by 2050 by allowing existing gas andcoal plants to function longer, while investing in renewablealternatives is still costly and too intermittent to providereliable baseload.
ZEP brings together companies such as Shell, Total, BP and Statoil.
But four utilities, including Germany's RWE andSweden's Vattenfall quit the platform, saying CCS wastoo costly.
Among governments, Britain, which is pursuing shale gas andhas storage options in its mature North Sea oil and gasterritory, has backed CCS.
Poland, whose economy depends on coal, has also lentsupport.
Its climate policy chief, Marcin Korolec, pushed at aBrussels meeting on Friday for a commitment to long-term"climate neutrality", rather than decarbonisation to be insertedinto the EU negotiating position for U.N. climate talks.
He told reporters this could include CCS and CCU -- carboncapture and use -- for instance in the chemical industry.
Outside Europe, leading OPEC member Saudi Arabia'sstate-owned Saudi Aramco has launched its first CCS project andis using CO2, rather than precious desert supplies of water, toenhance oil recovery.
Many environmental groups oppose CCS, which they say onlyprolongs fossil fuel use and wastes energy, but Norwegianenvironmental group Bellona supports it.
The European Commission has spent years trying to spur CCSand said it was preparing a report for the end of the year.
Its previous efforts to fund CCS with revenue from theEmissions Trading System (ETS) failed because candidate schemesdid not meet criteria, while steelmaker ArcelorMittal withdrew its application for a French project.
As part of its latest EU carbon market reforms, theCommission has proposed an innovation fund, which could coverCCS and other low carbon technology. ($1 = 0.8843 euros) (Additional reporting by Reem Shamseddine in Khobar; Editing bySusan Fenton)
