DATA CENTRES AND PROLONGING THE NORTH SEA GAS INDUSTRY — WHAT PEAK CLUSTER IS REALLY ABOUT!
Dear Supporters,
It is becoming increasingly clear that Peak Cluster is not primarily about saving the cement industry. It is about putting infrastructure in place to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry and to power data centres.
At an industry summit in June 2025, Neil McCullogh, then CEO of Spirit Energy, said: “We’re working with our Peak Cluster partners – the UK’s leading cement and lime producers …….to deliver the decarbonisation capabilities that will make this region a most attractive proposition for the data centres, AI developers and other major infrastructure developers who are eyeing up the UK for billions of pounds of investment.”
https://www.spirit-energy.com/newsroom/press-releases/neil-mcculloch-speech-at-good-growth-summit/
The IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, describes itself as a progressive think tank and is a registered charity, not a lobbying organisation. As an independent registered charity, it is legally restricted from political lobbying. Even so, its website says it will attend five political party conferences this year. It is also notable that IPPR has received funding from Liverpool City Council aswell as a number of energy companies.
Last month, IPPR published an article arguing that consent for the Jackdaw and Rosebank gas fields should be conditional on developers storing a proportion—not all—of the CO2 produced from the fuels. The article states: “These licenses could be made conditional on developers storing a proportion of CO2 from the fuels produced. They could do this themselves or pay a small levy which government would use to cover the cost of its CCUS investment…” It also specifically refers to the cement industries in the Peak District. i.e the article is arguing that allowing the Rosbank and Jackdaw gas and oil fields could pay for Peak Cluster
https://www.ippr.org/articles/financing-carbon-capture-usage-and-storage
https://www.facebook.com/groups/climateandenvironmentnews/permalink/10165158292010115/
Last year, the Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that Rosebank and Jackdaw had been unlawfully approved because the government had failed to consider the climate impact of burning the oil and gas extracted from the sites.
Rosebank is an oil and gas field north-west of Shetland, owned by Adura, a joint venture between Norwegian company Equinor and Shell.
Coincidentally, Adura’s CEO is Neil McCullogh — the same Neil McCullogh who, as CEO of Spirit Energy, one of Peak Cluster’s partners, promoted Peak Cluster’s potential to make the North West attractive to data centres.
Data centres are controversial for many reasons, including their high water use and the significant energy they draw from the National Grid. Rising electricity demand and grid connection delays are pushing operators towards alternative energy sources. Earlier this year, it emerged that more than 100 UK data centres plan to burn gas on site to generate power. This is where Adura and Peak Cluster come in: supplying the natural gas and enabling the resulting CO2 emissions to be stored beneath the sea.
The claim that Peak Cluster is about saving the Peak District cement and lime industry is a distraction. The cement industries would use only 0.3% of the Morecambe Bay gas fields’ storage capacity each year. Why, then, spend £5 billion building a 200km pipeline and a huge coastal AGI? This is looking more and more more like a plan to bring waste CO2 from Europe via Tranmere and, as Neil McCullogh put it, make the region “a most attractive proposition for data centres, AI developers and major infrastructure developers”.
Please write to your MP and let them know how you feel about Peak Cluster working to make the North West an “attractive proposition” for gas-fired data centres.
Please consider donating to Action Against CCS's legal fighting fund via their website https://actionagainstccs.com/
There is also still time to buy raffle tickets from the AACCS / West Kirby Live with some fantastic prizes in aid of fighting Peak Cluster:
Thank you for your support.