Drax Pull Out Of CCS Project
By Paul Homewood
This is the announcement today from Drax:
Selby, Yorkshire: Drax today announced it remained committed to fulfilling its current work on a Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) feasibility and technology development project (FEED), but once completed, would not be investing further and will withdraw as a partner of Capture Power Ltd, the developer of the White Rose CCS project.
The two year project is being taken forward by the Capture Power partnership – made up of Drax, Alstom and BOC and is looking at the potential to capture up to 90% of carbon emissions from a new coal fired power station and safely store them beneath the North Sea. The project is due to conclude during the next 6-12 months.
Drax has also confirmed that while at that point it would cease to commit further investment, it will continue to make the site owned by Drax, along with the infrastructure at the Power Plant, available for the project to be built.
Drax Group Operations Director, and Capture Power Board Director, Pete Emery said:
“We remain fully committed to completing what we’ve signed up to – the completion of a study into the feasibility and development of world leading technology that could result in dramatic reductions in carbon emissions produced by power stations and heavy industry.
“We are confident the technology we have developed has real potential, but have reluctantly taken a decision not to invest any further in the development of this project. The decision is based purely on a drastically different financial and regulatory environment and we must put the interests of the business and our shareholders first.
“We will focus our resources on the areas which we can deliver best value, particularly working with Government to explore the potential for converting a fourth generating unit to run on sustainable biomass.
“Drax still believes this project has great potential and we have announced that the site at the Drax Power Plant, along with our existing infrastructure remain available for the project to be built.”
As Reuters reports, the UK government has committed £1 billion for two CCS projects, including the one at Drax.
Currently the project is only at the FEED stage, (Front End Engineering and Design). The Final Investment Decision was expected late this year.
Given the large amount of funding available from the government, and the no doubt generous strike prices that would be negotiated, it is hard to believe the “lack of money” excuse offered.
It seems much more likely that Drax have realised the very real likelihood that the project will never be commercially viable.
The other partners remain committed at this stage, but for how long one wonders.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The BBC are leading the Green wailing and finger-pointing about this, but many so-called Greens must be secretly pleased, just imagine the impact on Big Green if CCS became effective and cheap, allowing King coal and all those big nasty capitalist companies to continue unhindered.
CCS will never become effective and cheap. Too complex, too dangerous and too energy inefficient.
Exactly this. The BBC are going strong on ‘due to cuts in government subsidies’ but not giving any right of reply. You can tell they’re spitting mad. Brilliant! As Phillip says below, there’s no doubt CCS is a completely dead duck. One step at a time.
How many years has this been going on, with those involved pulling out at an early stage? It’s obvious that CCS is a non-flyer.
It’s not just a non-flyer – it’s a total waste of money. Carbon dioxide is Good For Plants!!
“the biggest coal-fired power station in the UK” from the BBC, is this still true?
Have they not converted a number of plants a DRAX to pellets? Are they really still the biggest as far as COAL is concerned?
I heard Dorothy Thompson on Radio 4 this morning. She said how important CCS is then that poor old Drax could not afford it. It is obviously a ploy to lever more subsidies from the government, like the solar and wind lobbies are trying to do.
Wood burning at Drax is purely subsidy driven, plus the arbitrary penalties on coal burning.
re drax ……….. And don’t forget all those nasty particulates etc. from all those deisel engines used to harvest and process the wood to make the pellets!
Actually there is no proof that particulates in the air come predominantly from diesels, and secondly you would not rely on the rigor of the research into the health effects of particulates to even predict that tomorrow England play Wales in the world cup. Just like all the other poor science from the climate community when you start looking into all these other peripheral matters you find the same scandalously poor science and false conclusions.
When finished Drax had 6 x 660 mw coal fired boilers making it the UK largest power station of any sort. Two units have been converted to wood pellets, but the remaining 4 units still makes it the the largest coal fired power station in the UK.
Drax chief executive Dorothy Thompson said it was a very sad decision and they thought the project still had a lot of potential for sucking subsidies out of the pockets of those who could least afford it.
The VERY BEST PLACE to sequester CO2 is in the atmosphere. 🙂
100% agree Andy. Plants love it, more cropping for your buck, can’t beat a free lunch that CO2 is.