UK opens first carbon capture plant

Yesterday signaled a major step forward for carbon capture and storage technology, with the UK launch of a flagship test programme in the county of Yorkshire.

The Secretary of State for Energy, Chris Huhne, was on hand to officially open the UK’s first carbon capture plant, a project worth more than £20 million. Supported by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the Yorkshire facility has been jointly subsidized by industry partners Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), Doosan Power Systems and Vattenfall.

The innovative new technology will capture the equivalent of up 100 tonnes of carbon emissions a day from SSE’s Ferrybridge coal-fired power station.

“This flagship test programme at Ferrybridge represents an important milestone in the UK’s plans to develop CCS and provides a critical bridge to meeting our long term aim of cost competitive CCS deployment by the 2020s,” said Huhne at the launch ceremony of the CCPilot 100+ project. 

“This is the first operating carbon capture plant attached to a power station at this scale in the UK and has benefited from more than £6 million in public money. This investment will be invaluable to the wider commercial scale deployment of CCS by reducing uncertainty, driving down costs and developing the UK supply chain and skills.”

The project is part a £125 million Government-led CCS research and development programme which will run between 2011 and 2015. Over 20 British based companies have supplied components to the Ferrybridge carbon capture plant.

“The Technology Strategy Board is delighted to provide support for this pilot project. It represents a major step towards the demonstration and deployment of carbon capture and storage in the UK and emphasises the vital role that innovation is playing in bringing the technology closer to commercialization,” added Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board, Iain Gray.

 

Schematic showing both terrestrial and geological sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions from a coal-fired plant. (Wikimedia)

 

 

Image 01:  Alan Murray-Rust | Wikimedia Commons