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Feb 28 (Reuters) - Once aiming to lead the world indeveloping technology to capture and bury emissions underground,Europe has been singled out as a laggard region as projects inNorth America and China move forward. With several projects abandoned or stalled and a 2007 aim toinstall 12 plants forgotten, proponents have reined in hopes toa handful of projects in Britain, the Netherlands and Norway. As of February 2014, there are three large-scale carboncapture and storage (CCS) schemes expected to go forward in thenear term, with the Norwegian government aiming to realise afourth by 2020. In the last three months, Britain has given small amounts ofdesign funding to two projects - White Rose and Peterhead Gas - both of which are the government's preferred bidders for afurther 1 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) of state cash. In addition to the UK government funding, White Rose is theonly CCS project still in the running for European Union fundingunder the NER300 programme. The NER300 is linked to prices in the EU Emissions TradingSystem, but an 80 percent crash in permit prices since 2008 hasleft a funding shortfall of as much as 7 billion euros ($9.67billion) that most cash-strapped member states have beenunwilling to cover. CCS captures, transports and buries underground carbondioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. CCS projects are costly at around $1 billion each and haveraised concerns from EU lawmakers about determining liabilityfor future leaks or whether government money would be betterspent on replacing fossil fuel-burning power plants entirelywith renewable energy alternatives. Following is a list of the large-scale European carboncapture projects that proponents expect to be realised thisdecade. Project Location Companies Planned Expected involved CO2 operational capture date capacity White Rose North Drax 2 2020 Yorkshire, , million England, UK Alstom[ALSF. tonnes a UL], year National (mt/y) Grid Peterhead Aberdeenshire Royal Dutch 1 mt/y 2018 Gas , Scotland, Shell UK , SSE Rotterdam Zuid-Holland, E.ON 1.1 mt/y 2017 Opslag en Netherlands , GDF Suez Afvang Demonstrat ieproject (ROAD) ($1 = 0.7240 euros) (Reporting by Melissa Massey and Ben Garside in London, editingby David Evans)