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Shell, Petrofac and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) have joined an ambitious bid to turn Peterhead power station into the UK’s first carbon capture and storage plant, which would see carbon dioxide emissions pumped into an empty North Sea gas field.
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The trio have launched a bid for European Union funding – saying the Buchan site was the best in the UK.
The CO2 captured from one of the 385 MW gas fired units at the power plant would be transported to the nearby St Fergus gas terminal through an existing underground pipeline.
At St Fergus, the gas will be compressed and then pumped out to the Goldeneye platform through another pipeline and then transported to an existing underground gas reservoir.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond welcomed the announcement saying: “I have long argued that we must seize the opportunity to demonstrate carbon capture and storage technology at Scotland's power stations such as Peterhead and the announcement from SSE is very welcome.”
“Scotland is at the forefront of low carbon energy development and deployment. This is underpinned by our world-leading climate-change targets.”
“We already know that, alongside our unrivalled offshore renewable resources, Scotland has a huge capacity below the North Sea capable of capturing safely and storing emissions from many gas and coal-fired plants for the next 200 years. So Scotland is ideally-placed to become a European hub for carbon capture and storage.”
BP abandoned plans for a carbon capture plant at Peterhead in 2007, blaming UK Government delays and support for dirtier coal plants for its decision. That project would have cost £600 million and created 1000 jobs.
However, the new governing coalition has opened up the competition for carbon -capture funding to gas plants as well, and SSE has applied for a share of the £9 billion funding on offer from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
SSE chief executive Ian Marchant said: “If long-term targets for reducing emissions are to be met, carbon capture and storage technology must be applied as widely as possible.
“I believe Peterhead represents the best site in the UK for a gas carbon-capture project and our co-operation with Shell and Petrofac strengthens this proposition even further.”
“Given the work already undertaken, the project can proceed at a pace at least equal to other projects in Europe. I hope our submission will successfully persuade others that this is the case.”