UK’s Drax in carbon capture storage bid

• 6 years ago (2018-05-21)
• David Flin

Emissions 65 Europe 1089

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Drax, Britain’s biggest power station, is piloting the first bioenergy carbon capture storage (Beccs) project of its type in Europe. The company said that this move could eventually make it carbon negative.

Drax produces 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity, and 65 per cent of its output is through burning biomass. The company has announced that it has joined with the C-Capture project in what could be the first of several pilot projects for Beccs. Drax said that if this pilot were to lead to a full roll-out, it would deliver net negative emissions. The firm pointed to 2016 research which suggested that Beccs could deliver around 55 million tonnes of net negative emissions in the UK by the 2050s, approximately half the UK’s emissions target.

Will Gardiner, CEO of the Drax Group, said: “If the world is to achieve the targets agreed in Paris and pursue a cleaner future, negative emissions are a must, and Beccs is a leading technology to help achieve it. This pilot is the UK’s first step, but it won’t be the only one at Drax. We will soon have four operational biomass units, which provide us with a great opportunity to test different technologies that could allow Drax to deliver negative emissions and start to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”