Ministers need to back ambitious Ferrybridge plans

Chocked to the gunwales with complex technical jargon, Enfinium’s – a leading UK firm with four energy-from-waste plants dotted around the country – publicity team did its utmost to pique interest in relation to its plans to capture carbon at Ferrybridge, Knottingley.

Yet, at a time when the prospect of fracking has far from gone away and new oil and gas licences are being signed off, this is precisely the type of ingenuity from the energy sector that we should get excited about if we are to stand any chance of being able to look future generations in the eye and honestly claim to have done all we can to leave them a healthier planet than the one we were handed.

The planned investment at Ferrybridge is in the region of £800m and will help to fund some 200 jobs in its development phase alone – in and of itself that is cause to celebrate.

But it is the notion of carbon negative power generation that we must welcome first and foremost; should this ambition come to fruition – removing from the atmosphere the equivalent of the carbon emissions of every household in Manchester whilst piping homegrown secure, reliable, cleaner power into the National Grid – energy that is independent of any foreign supplier – t is important that as well as scrutinising the proposition carefully, where credit is due for progress made it should be offered.

The challenge, now, will be for Government: Ministers will need to approve of the ambition, and match it with grant funding. The question now is: will they?