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Baby step closer to cleaner power station
The giant Drax power station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, has become the first in Europe to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from wood-burning.
The plant burns seven million tonnes of wood chips each year to drive generators to make electricity and has now begun a pilot project to capture one tonne a day of CO2 from its wood combustion.
Using innovative technology*, developed by Leeds-based C-Capture, if the pilot can be scaled up to deliver negative emissions, Drax Power Station would be helping to remove the gases that cause global warning from the atmosphere at the same time as electricity is produced.
Drax has invested £400,000 in the pilot.
Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, Claire Perry, commented: “This innovative technology has the potential to make huge strides in our efforts to tackle climate change while kick-starting an entirely new cutting-edge industry in the UK. World-firsts like this will help us to realise our ambition of having a first operational plant by the mid-2020s as we continue to seize the opportunities of moving to a greener, cleaner economy – a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy.”
Caspar Schoolderman, Director of Engineering at C-Capture added: “Working at this scale is really where the engineering gets interesting. The challenge now is to get all the information we need to design and build a capture plant 10,000 times bigger. It’s only really when we get to those sorts of scales that we can start to have an impact on the climate.”
C-Capture is a spin-out from the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds, established through funding from IP Group Plc.
*C-Capture has developed a proprietary solvent that can be used to isolate carbon dioxide from the flue gases released when biomass is used to generate electricity.
The Global Good Awards 2019 are now open!
There are 13 categories to choose from including Environmental Behaviour Change, Sustainable Supply Chain and Good Employer of the Year. And remember entry fees are only charged when you submit your entry. There are no fees to pay for starting an application.
