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As the UK expands carbon capture beyond major industrial clusters, thousands of tonnes of CO₂ will need to travel by truck, rail, and ship. For hauliers, this could create a specialist new freight market — one with high-value contracts, growing volumes, and the chance to get in early before pipelines dominate. But moving liquefied CO₂ comes with operational, regulatory, and planning challenges that operators will need to navigate.
If the UK meets its ambition to store 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2035, as much as 15 million tonnes of that could be travelling without a pipeline.
Moved by road, that would mean around 1,350 truck movements every day across the country, carrying liquefied CO₂ from energy-from-waste plants, cement works and chemical sites to ports, railheads or storage terminals bound for reservoirs beneath the North Sea.
Carbon capture is often presented as an invisible climate solution. In reality, for much of British industry it may prove highly visible — and highly logistical.
The government’s carbon capture strategy has so far focused on building shared pipeline networks linking major industrial clusters such as the Humber to offshore storage. But those networks are still to be constructed, and many sites will never connect to them. Smaller emitters, geographically dispersed facilities and projects outside the government’s initial cluster programme are likely to depend on what policymakers term “non-pipeline transport” (NPT): moving captured CO₂ by truck, train, ship or barge.
That shift could create a specialist new freight market. It could also expose difficult questions about cost, congestion, permitting and commercial risk — issues that receive far less attention than capture technology or offshore storage.
A recent market summary from the Carbon Capture and Storage Association estimates that around 100 capture projects are now in development across the UK, with a potential to capture 77 million tonnes of CO₂ annually. While named industrial clusters are expected to rely on pipelines, a “strong pipeline” of additional regional projects — from South Wales to the Solent and the Thames estuary — sit outside the government’s currently committed networks. Many, the association notes, will depend on workable non-pipeline transport frameworks.
Consultants at DNV, in a study for the UK’s Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge, suggest non-pipeline projects could account for up to 30% of captured emissions by 2035 — around 15 million tonnes per annum. Their modelling highlights the trade-offs between modes. To transport 1 million tonnes of liquefied CO₂ per year would require roughly 90 truckloads per day, compared with two trains daily or a single ship per week.
Beyond the pipe dream
Road haulage offers flexibility and lower upfront infrastructure costs. It is also the most expensive option per tonne-mile and, crucially, the most visible. Energy-from-waste plants, for example, already generate significant HGV traffic delivering feedstock. Adding CO₂ tankers into congested road networks may prove contentious — and planning consent for liquefaction, storage and loading facilities will not be automatic.
Rail and shipping offer greater capacity and potentially easier permitting, particularly where reduced road congestion can be presented as a public benefit. But they require suitable infrastructure, intermodal facilities and coordination between multiple parties.
That coordination risk sits at the heart of a new government consultation on supporting non-pipeline CO₂ transport, which closes on 1 May. Unlike pipeline clusters — effectively curated and sequenced by government — NPT value chains are expected to “self-organise”. Capture plants, liquefaction units, transport providers, ports and storage operators will need to develop in lockstep. If timing slips or demand evaporates, assets could be stranded.
Ministers acknowledge market failures: the cost of carbon capture exceeds the carbon price; first movers face high upfront costs; and coordination across multiple actors is difficult. Yet the government signals a preference for limited intervention, arguing that many commercial and operational barriers may be better resolved by industry.
Standards pose another challenge. Non-pipeline providers may require tighter CO₂ specifications than pipeline networks to manage corrosion and safety risks. At the same time, policymakers suggest early projects may benefit from flexibility rather than rigid standardisation — at least initially.
All of which leaves a fundamental question unresolved: who will aggregate the chain? One contracting counterparty must ultimately take responsibility for aligning capture, transport and storage. Whether that is the emitter, the storage operator or an intermediary remains unclear.
What is clearer is that logistics, not just engineering, may determine how far and how fast carbon capture spreads beyond Britain’s industrial heartlands.
Pipelines may dominate the headlines. But if carbon capture extends into the dispersed fabric of UK industry, it will not flow quietly underground. It will travel by rail, by ship — and, very visibly, by road.
The government wants views on proposed policy positions and evidence for intervention and the consultation closes on 1
