In 2019, a partnership between BP and German energy provider ENBW agreed to pay £231 million ($290 million) in annual option fees alone.

While the offshore wind industry booms, the Crown Estate is already eyeing the next opportunity to cash in on its seabed empire: carbon storage. The seabed around the UK has room to store 78 billion tons of carbon dioxide—more than enough space to cram in 200 years’ worth of the country’s annual emissions. Increasingly, the North Sea is being seen as a destination to store carbon captured from…