Boost for region’s clean coal plans

Scientists described the Government’s decision to press ahead with Drax’s ambitious White Rose project as the “next step” in a wider CCS project that could one day incorporate a raft of major polluters across the region.

Yorkshire is widely seen as one of the best places in the world to trial CCS technology, due to its cluster of heavy polluting industries and its proximity to depleted oil and gas fields beneath the North Sea, where scientists believe millions of tons of CO2 could be stored.

Ambitious plans have been drawn up for a vast underground CO2 pipeline stretching right across Yorkshire, which could be shared by a significant number of power stations, steelworks and other major industrial sites.

Experts have long believed a shared CCS network provides the best possible way to ensure Yorkshire can maintain its proud industrial heritage as the push to slash carbon emissions grows ever more intense.

But the huge expense of getting such a cutting-edge technology up and running on a commercial scale makes it impossible without significant public funding.

CCS scientist Stephen Brown, director of Leeds-based consultancy CO2Sense, said: “Yorkshire and Humber is the best strategic location in Europe to develop and deploy carbon capture and storage, and I congratulate Drax and its partners on their success in securing development funding for their project.

“Carbon capture and storage has the potential to transform the industrial base of the region and put us at the forefront of the global low carbon economy.

“This award is the next step in the process to establish a region-wide CCS network that can reduce the carbon emissions of heavy industry in the region, secure thousands of jobs and billions in investment and create opportunities for technical innovation over the next few decades.”

Drax is working alongside the National Grid to develop the large underground pipeline that may one day snake across Yorkshire from Drax’s site near Selby to the Humber estuary and out into the North Sea.

Jim Ward, National Grid’s head of CCS said: “We’re delighted at the support for the White Rose project. National Grid sees CCS as an important tool in reducing emissions from the power sector, and maintaining fossil-fuel generation in the energy mix.

“Successful development of this innovative technology will help ensure security of supply and help maintain an essential energy mix.

“The proposed cluster approach could help deliver cost competitive low carbon power generation for consumers, whilst de-carbonising the UK’s fossil-fuelled electricity generation and industrial sectors. This would provide a lasting legacy for the ongoing future deployment of CCS.”

The Government offered some words of comfort for other schemes which failed to win public funding, such as plans for another ‘clean coal’ power station at Hatfield, near Doncaster.

Energy Minister John Hayes said the Government’s long-term goal is to create an entire “cost competitive CCS industry”, and he expects many more CCS schemes to get off the ground in the coming years thanks to the Government’s new system of subsidies which will be enshrined in the Energy Bill currently passing through Parliament.

“These projects are just the start,” he said. “In the past year we have demonstrated there is significant appetite from industry to invest in UK CCS, providing jobs and investment opportunities.

“It is my intention to work with industry, beyond these two projects, to ensure we have further CCS projects by the end of the decade – supported by the innovative changes we are making to the energy market to encourage investment in low carbon electricity.”