Coal power station Drax to win approval for net zero carbon capture plan
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Drax, once the UK’s dirtiest coal-fired power station, is set to stoke renewed controversy as ministers prepare to approve a multibillion-pound CO2 capture scheme it claims would make it “carbon negative”.
The scheme has infuriated greens already angered by Drax’s switch from coal to wood – burning eight million tonnes last year alone. They say Drax’s clear-cutting of forests in North America destroys the environment rather than supporting it.
Next week, however, Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho is expected to secure Drax’s future by approving a scheme to bolt two massive carbon capture plants onto Drax’s four generating units, potentially stripping out almost all their CO2 emissions.
Drax claims the scheme will allow it to remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than it produces – making it the world’s first carbon negative thermal power station. Greens claim it will destroy forests and cost consumers billions of pounds.
Ms Coutinho is also due to launch a consultation into how best to extend the subsidy system under which Drax last year received £617m from consumer bills. The scheme terminates in 2027 so Coutinho will propose extending it into at least the 2030s, keeping Drax in business for at least several years.
Schemes like Drax’s, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or Beccs, are highly controversial – green groups argue that cutting down forests to generate electricity destroys the environment rather than protecting it.
Drax produces about 4pc of the UK’s electricity so ministers are keen to protect it on energy security grounds too.
The idea underpinning Beccs schemes is that as plants and trees grow they capture CO2 from the air via photosynthesis.
If they are burned then that CO2 is released back into the air so there is no overall loss or gain. This means wood-burning on its own can be described as “low carbon”.
However, if the CO2 from burning wood is captured and permanently buried underground, as Drax proposes, then the process actually removes CO2 from the atmosphere permanently. This would make it “carbon negative”.
Such claims infuriate environmentalists and Drax’s plans have been opposed by Friends of the Earth, Client Earth and Ember. They say that despite changing from coal to wood Drax remains the UK’s largest single source of CO2 emissions at more than 13 million tonnes a year.
Tomos Harrison, an analyst at global energy think tank Ember, said: “UK energy bill-payers have already paid billions to Drax to burn wood for electricity, a practice which is unlikely to reduce the UK’s contribution to climate change and could actually be increasing it.
“Beccs is an unproven and controversial technology that cannot be guaranteed to deliver negative emissions and will cost bill-payers even more.
“Instead of continuing support for wood-burning in the UK we should be investing in wind and solar which bring down energy bills and make a genuine positive contribution to the UK’s climate change efforts.”
I can’t describe it better then the Greens – it’s doubling down on destroying virgin forests in North America, it’s massively expensive, and it may not even work.
Drax alone are talking of investing billions, and on top of that comes the costs of piping it all away to the North Sea. We already know that Carbon Capture plants require a lot of energy to work, meaning that much of Drax’s electricity will be wasted in the process.
Simply extending the existing subsidy schemes for another 15 years, which will the very least Drax will demand, will cost £10 billion. All of this will end up being added to our energy bills.
And for what? Even if it works perfectly, carbon capture will only save 4% of the UK’s emissions, some 15 million tonnes a year or so. A mere drip in the ocean of the world’s total emissions.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Nature already does ‘carbon capture’ – plants! The more ‘carbon’ released into the air, the more plants, the more capture. And it’s free.
Carbon – that’s soot. Why can’t Climatrons speak in whole molecules, but I suppose Science is not their strong point?
Too true on both counts – nothing more efficient at fixing carbon dioxide than plants and science is definitely not a strong point for anyone trying to invent some other way
I think the efficiency of photosynthesis is down in the single figures. It’s effective because there’s a lot of it, ditto a lot of the power source driving it, and an abundant supply of catalysing materials.
“…nothing more efficient at fixing carbon dioxide than plants…”
The Sea is pretty effective at doing it – working at almost 100% if given a little time. Treating carbon dioxide as a “fungible,” we can say that, of 1,000,000 tonnes of extra carbon dioxide released into the air, it is a fact that within one year 500,000 tonnes will diffuse into and be sequestered in the upper (easily mixed) layer of the water. Over the following centuries, THIS 500,000 tonnes will find its way by various mechanisms into the deeper (not easily mixed) layer; while the OTHER 500,000 tonnes will be gradually “sucked in” to replace what is removed from the upper layer. This train of argument of course elicits the squeal, “Ocean acidification!” But the almost universal belief that this automatically follows is based on babyish howlers in physical chemistry. Of all the carbon dioxide that enters (pure*) water 99.7% must stay in undissociated form. It just will not progress to carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is a WEAK acid.
The very word “dissolve” is a misnomer when applied to the common atmospheric gases and water.
By the way, leaves are about 5% efficient at converting incident radiation from the sun into chemical potential energy. But most of this chemical energy is used up in growing roots and helping the plant to just live. About 0.5% of the original energy of the sun which falls onto the leaf will facilitate the production of stored biomass.
* Slightly different in salty water. But the sea water actually is “buffered” by the salts already in it from erosion processes, and this is a further reason why acidification is pretty much a nonsense idea with the geologically inconsequential amounts of carbon dioxide which humans are releasing at present. Of course, should future generations release ten times as much as at present for a thousand years…
The problem with plants fixing carbon is that aerobic respiration will eventually recycle it back to CO2 (and water) unless the biomass is buried away from the oxygen it created. It’s part of Nature’s carbon cycle.
Capturing Carbon?
We are told that CO2 is causing ‘Climate Change’. How many people even know the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere? Very few. Tell them that it is about 420 ppm (parts per million). Blank look. An actual percentage: (0.04%). Better.
But this works: – 100 years ago for every 10,000 molecules in the air about 3 were CO2. Now it is about 4. That change causes ‘Climate Change’!!
Then consider this: – CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas absorbing infra-red in 2 narrow ranges. Water vapour absorbs over a much wider range and, on average, it is about 3%. i.e., about 60 times the concentration of CO2.
‘Climate Change’ due to CO2 is a myth!
The hypothesis of global warming from man-made CO2 depends on a much-repeated narrative about CO2 trapping infrared (IR) photons leaving the earth. Although a beguilingly simple idea, a host of assumptions underlie it. One of these is that the radiative photonic absorption – emission interactions of the trace gas CO2 dominate heat movement in the atmosphere.
And it turns out, this argument, a pillar of the global warming theory, is false – it was refuted in advance by none other than Albert Einstein in 1917.
See also definitive analysis by Van Wijngaarden and Happer
https://co2coalition.org/publications/van-wijngaarden-and-happer-radiative-transfer-paper-for-five-greenhouse-gases-explained/
I used to use Old Trafford but in line with the current Premier League it’s now the Etihad Stadium. Capacity 53,400, so 300 ppm is 16 people the Manchester City team, the manager and four officials. Up it to 408ppm and it’s City and their opponents.
Usually met with increduality.
The problem is that energy ministers such as Coutinho do not understand what they are being told by their civil servants and the lobbyists, who are no doubt bribing lots of officials anf MPs (one way or another- i.e. with promises of future jobs etc, as per Skidmore and lots of his predecessors).
I can’t see how those choosing government advisors, that is, the senior civil servants, understand what they are doing either.
And it might not be mostly bribery, just ignorance and arrogance. Engineers employed by a Windmill Construction Companies would be doing their jobs, designing, building and selling the best windmills ever, because that is what they are employed to do. What else can they do?
The decision to use windmills to provide a dependable Electricity supply was taken years ago, and nothing to do with the Windmill Construction Companies.
A salesman that informs, without selling, is a poor salesman. And, remember, the decision to use windmills isn’t on the table, so it’s likely the Civil Servants, and MPs involved don’t understand the limits of honest Business as well as any STEM wisdom.
Stupidity is usually the answer.
Wow, There is so much crap coming out from the DESNZ, that I am overwhelmed with trying to understand what the hell is going on. They seem to be throwing money at anything that may possibly reduce our carbon dioxide production. When we all understand that carbon dioxide is a benign trace gas that with photosynthesis in plants, together with water and sunlight produces all food on Earth.
Here is another article that I got today about them. it gets worse.
Best of luck Claire Coutinho sorting all this out
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/weird-scenes-inside-the-energy-gold-mine?
I will leave some predictions:
It will not work as intended for fundamental reasons that few understand
Attempts to get it working will make the uneconomic case for abandoning it obvious even to non-economists
Public shock over the now well pubicised Post Office Horizon skandal will be dwarfed once the general public discover what has been going on at Drax and what is now planned and more particularly the subsidies involved
I suspect that even Greens will be up in arms
In comparison the extention of HS2 will seem to many as a good idea.
It’s a bad joke. Cuttinng down thousands of mature trees, chipping them and shipping them across continents and onto ships crossing the Atlantic produces more co2 than it sves-the theory being that trees are ‘renewable’ Give it thirty or foty years, however!
Wonderful! And just how much will Drax’s prices have to go up to pay for CC?
A question for consumers: cheaper energy with a smattering in CO2, or expensive energy with less CO2 than you could notice the difference?
On what basis was it the “dirtiest” coal fired station? If merely that it was/is the biggest hence on peak producing more smoke then the claim is wrong.
No. Actually this “dirtiest” claim, in the first line, is 100% nonsense. Back in the early 1990s when Drax was Europe’s biggest power station (4 GW), it was probably also the cleanest, as it was one of the very first fitted out with a full flue gas desulphurisation plant (shutting local gypsum mines in the process). In addition, the dust precipitators were (then) state of the art.
The only vestige of truth in this absurd claim is if you really believe that CO2 is “dirty”, rather than a perfectly “clean” trace gas vital for all life on earth.
It is also worth pointing out that when this lunatic wood burning scheme for Drax was introduced, our GangGreen chums were practically creaming their jeans at the concept. “Zero Carbon” they screeched!
I, and many others, pointed out that trees that took 60 years to grow, were burned in about 15 seconds. Sustainable? HoHo. And even that ignores the amount of diesel and other “fossil” fuels felling, pulverising, drying, storing, transporting to a port, loading propelling across the Atlantic, unloading, loading into special rail wagons, trailing across the UK to Drax, unloading and storing in a controlled environment and blowing into the furnaces.
BUT, it is dispatchable energy, so, far better than other Ruinables. Although probably at least four times as expensive as Yorkshire coal.
” Although probably at least four times as expensive as Yorkshire coal. ”
That would be an interesting set of calculations (intended as a “pro-coal” comment)
Martin
You made the point I was going to make: that Drax had bery serious flu scrubbing equipment, that worked well. I remember that from my teenage.
Without question we need all the CO2 we can get to feed the plants on which we live, directly or indirectly via animals. To be trying to reduce it it blasting away at our own feet!
I am an unswerving Malthusian and “Club of Rome”-ist. All the greens who I try to discuss these books have never read them. Not one. Like good disciples they put their total faith (untested belief) in the dogma of the University Cardinals and simply recite “they have been scientifically proved wrong”. They can never tell me by whom or how except get confused by Malthus’ maths. All they have to do is look at Drax burning up the forests and the Soya farmers clearing land for more food.
It is perfectly simple – there are at least six billion too many people. How we put that right is the hardest question ever asked of us in all history, But answer it we must.
Martin
I have a question please. How did Drax lead to closing the gypsum mines? I can’t work that one out, but my Chemistry is now very rusty.
Thank you
Quill
Easy one first
Limestone (Calcium Carbonate) plus Sulphur Dioxide ( from flue gasses, mainly from small quantities of iron pyrites (Iron Sulphide) in the coal when burned, together with Carbon (to Carbon Dioxide + lots and lots of thermal energy. All in the furnaces.
So the added Limestone comes out as Calcium Sulphate, or Gypsum. Gypsum converted to plasterboard or plaster. It costs money to mine Gypsum, but along comes the Central Electricity Generating Board, who suddenly have a mountain of Gypsum which they have to pay someone to get rid of. You can work out what happens to Gypsum mine.
Obviously the chemistry is more complex than I suggest. But anyone who can grasp the difference between Carbon and Carbon Dioxide will get the drift.
Reduced Sulphur Dioxide is probably, on balance, a good thing, although removing it was one of the more likely causes of atmospheric warming in the 80s and 90s. But it had the huge advantage of making coal generated electricity more expensive. The Carbon Capture and Storage malarky has precisely the same benefit for those trying to destroy the economies of the West.
‘This would make it “carbon negative”.’
– – –
Drax forest munchers must be close to using more energy on non-electricity generation than on supplying electrons to the grid.
How much Chinese CO2 will be captured? UK only produces one per cent so nothing we do will make the slightest difference. And no one admires our virtue signalling.
I’m sure the Chinese applaud our virtue.
‘Power station Drax to win approval for net zero carbon capture plan’
Gamecock assumes a ‘net zero carbon capture plan’ will work better than the previous plain carbon capture plans.
Can’t blame Drax. The Man is spending money.
Gamecock suspects it actually going to be capture and release. Like border policy.
Is that the governments way of admitting we still need Drax and the few other real power stations that are left (is it only three now?) as they provide reliable power.
Ratcliffe on Soar survives until September, burning mainly imported coal blended with odd dried coal slurries excavated from colliery tip remediation schemes and possibly a tiny amount from “three men and a donkey” operations way out in the pennines or odd corners of Wales.
Not certain but don’t think Drax has burned any coal for a year or more. There used to be an old plant in Ulster but I believe that’s history.
Coal power fans will very soon have to content themselves with burning imported coal or “smokeless” from Russia? Belarus? Poland? Australia? Columbia? Wherever, in a woodburner or similar domestic stove.
Of course, some electricity from Belgian, French, Dutch, cerainly German plants that didn’t want Zakhawi simpering as he demolished them, may still contribute to our increasingly desperate needs via our fantastically expensive interconnectors. Until Vlad the Bad spikes ’em.
Nice to see that Oslo has decreed that the Svalbard coal mines must close in 2025. I don’t know whether will close their coal mines as well. If I lived in Longbearben I’d be getting the Hell out of there.
Whether Russia will close..
Thank you Martin.
I’m glad that i’m old but god help our children and grand children.
There are 3 left. Drax, Ratcliffe on Soar (owned by Germans Uniper) and a 3rd owned by EDF. Only Uniper have agreed to carry on while the other 2 refused and both operating companies are signed up to the Davos Fascists.
I am appalled by the modesty of this proposal. Why bury carbon underground? Capture it in form of diamonds, and sell to the highest bidder 🙂
One question; how many replacement trees are being planted to replace those Drax wipes out?
The trick is . . . if they wanted to be carbon neutral (sic), they would grow the trees first, then burn them. Burning first, growing later means it will be 40 years before you get back to neutral.
It’s a scam, along with the Government’s recent announcements on hydrogen. The Royal Society of Chemistry calculated that BECCS using wood chips form Louisiana had an EROEI <1, or a net energy sink. No wonder it's going to need two subsidies, one for the power and one for the carbon capture. I can't think of an energy project that is more insane than this one. More here:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/weird-scenes-inside-the-energy-gold-mine
n Well Drax burns 8 million tonnes of wood per year which means it generates about 25 million tonnes of CO2
1 cubic meter of Carbon dioxide weighs 1.836 kilograms [kg];
so in round terms Drax will generate about 4 Billion Cu m of CO2 per year ; They really should tell us
1) the physical size and location of the storage cavern or reservoir in which they intend to sequester this ( actually compressed to 100 atmospheres it is about 8000 Olympic sized swimming pools to use a ludicrous unit beloved of Scientists)
2) the percentage of power output of the plant that will go into transporting this vast amount of CO2 to its destination wherever that is located – noone is saying
3) The total cost of this part of the operation.
No CO2 capture project that I have seen even hints at the magnitude of such costs and the attendant diminution of energy output. THey must think us stupid!
” we should be investing in wind and solar which bring down energy bills ”
Right. Nothing like a good chuckle every day. Be a comedian — make funny schist up.
And still we wait for a country that has increased its windmills and reduced its energy costs…..
“And for what? Even if it works perfectly, carbon capture will only save 4% of the UK’s emissions, some 15 million tonnes a year or so. A mere drip in the ocean of the world’s total emissions.”
Sorry, but yet again by playing in the globalists’ half – by comparing our emissions to others’ – you are accepting that CO2 emissions are a problem.
And extracting soot from a life enhancing gas is actually creating pollution that wasn’t there that has to be buried, and all at the cost of using more of the energy of which we are short.
We are never going to begin to make headway until we move the goal posts to “There is no problem to solve.”
“Drax alone are talking of investing billions,”
And who ultimately pays for all this waste of money, us as usual?
If the captured CO2 is piped into the North Sea, does it not end up in the atmosphere? Most of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the oceans anyway.
This is good news as otherwise, as a hydrocarbon fuelled power station, it would be earmarked for demolition, probably explosively, as already demonstrated by our COP26 president seen here in this official SSE video of the demolition of Ferrybridge power station :
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1429456184902393858/pu/vid/720×720/JwPnpycxEiyBmqVJ.mp4?tag=12
There is the possibility that his stay of execution may last long enough for this whole ant-West communist initiated CAGW/Net Zero attack to finally be recognised for what it is and to be halted.
BTW, do we know what will be the CfD cost for this carbon capture?
I recently pointed out to my “Conservative” MP the massive increase in coal production and usage in India. This is part of his reply:
“I appreciate your concern that India appears intent on using coal to fire its’ steel production, and that this may put the UK at a disadvantage. ( I didn’t actually say that, my intention was to point out the absurdities)
Steel employs around 32,500 people and supports up to a further 40,000 jobs through its supply chains in the UK, providing high value employment in economically deprived areas, including in Port Talbot. By 2050, emissions from industry will need to fall by around 90 per cent from today’s levels to meet our climate ambitions. (Several thousand jobs are forecast to be lost by the scaling down of steel production at Port Talbot).
The UK Government remains committed to supporting the decarbonisation of the UK steel sector and to improving its global competitiveness. Industrial sectors (including iron and steel) have been encouraged to bid into government competitive funds worth more than £1 billion to support them in cutting emissions and improving their energy efficiency.”
He didn’t say whose climate ambitions they were or what impact on the climate they would have. We have the oxymoron of “decarbonisation of the UK steel sector and to improving its global competitiveness”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/steel/tata-steel-to-get-500-million-from-uk-for-port-talbot/articleshow/103701181.cms
“The company’s UK operations have also been losing money due to the inherent cost inefficiencies in the UK, like high energy costs. Citing these reasons, the company had threatened to shut operations in the UK if it failed to reach agreement with the Sunak government over state grants. Such a closure would have seen thousands of job losses in the country and the UK becoming reliant on imports for a primary raw material like steel.”
My MP is a signed up member of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) and a supporter of Bright Blue: https://www.brightblue.org.uk/who-are-bright-blue/advisory-council/ Do check out the list, led by Penny Mordaunt and Michael Gove, with Matt Hancock and Damien Green amongst others.
In May 2018, Bright Blue, describing itself as an “independent think tank for liberal conservatism”, published a report entitled, “Hotting up, Strengthening the Climate Change Act ten years on” which claimed that there was a strong scientific, technological, legal, and political case for the UK Government to achieve deeper decarbonisation in the decades ahead, including through the adoption of a new legal net zero emission target. The report was funded by the European Climate Foundation, which also part funds the CEN.
Twelve months later Theresa May duly obliged.
As we’re talking ‘Carbon mitigation’, I note a story about how the renewable industry is set to vandalise Bronte country by planning to build 65 wind turbines on the moors near Haworth. They claim the electrity produced will power 286,000 homes annually (not sure what that means) and save 426,000 tons of Carbon emissions.
Whether talking mass or weight that amount works out as 1/20,000th of one ppm of CO2.
In ‘A Man for all Seasons’, Thomas More, at his trial, admonishes Richard Rich for bearing false witness and gaining Sec of Srate for Wales: ‘…but for Wales, Richard, for Wales…sigh. The wind farm is being pushed by Richard Bannister (me neither) and I can imagine what More would say to him: ‘…but for the moors, Richard?’
“The children at the DESNZ are insane. Of course, these plans will be a gold mine for gas suppliers, for gas network operators, electrolyser makers, hydrogen producers and of course the tree-burners at Drax.
For the rest of us, it means much higher energy costs. It will be the end for heavy industry and a disaster for consumers. So much for a more pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic approach that eases the burdens on families. We are desperately in need of some stranger’s hand in an increasingly desperate land.”
They should fit carbon dioxide transmutation technology.
Proof Of Reactions Inside The Thunderstorm Generator | Vortex Fusion
Paul, have I got a (long) comment awaiting moderation?
Yes, just released it
Regardless of what is done all of the important transportation required will be using conventional vehicles to get it done. That means more oil, not less. There is no substitute for gasolines and the renewable biofuels that depend on gasolines.
Not a hint from the article as to how the carbon will be captured, but I have seen somewhere reference to the addition of large equipment. This suggests absorbers (sometimes called scrubbers) and in itself implies amine solution absorption, aggravated by the 80% nitrogen in the flue gases. If that is indeed the proposal the initial and operating costs will be enormous and, perhaps worse, will be the “carry over” of the amine absorbent into the atmophere. Not nice at all (as residents of Billingham and Stockton became aware from ICI earlier). The only large scale alternative to remove CO2 as far as I am aware is using oxy-combustion of the fuel followed by more effective amine absorption by the absence of nitrogen. The so-called Allen technolgy is a very slick way of capturing the CO2 but again depends upon oxy-combustion. On the scale of Drax , oxy-combustion is beyond contemplation at any price. We are being conned again. I’m all ears if there is some technology I’ve missed.
Vernon E: I’m guessing that you are referring to the Allam process?
If so, it’s a bit different to your description. It’s an adaptation of the CCGT concept, using oxy-combustion of natural gas to drive the turbine, rather than firing boilers as at Drax. The resulting CO2 serves as the working fluid for the heat recovery stage with a portion bled off as a product stream. It emerges as “industrial quality” with no need for amine scrubbers, etc..
A 5 MW pilot ran successfully and a 300 MW facility is now under construction in Odessa, Texas.
It is claimed to be cost competitive with a conventional CCGT plant while releasing almost no CO2 to the atmosphere.
The US is the prime market because of the widespread use of CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery as well as the established subsidies for sequestration in some states.
Here’s the website of the company:
https://netpower.com/#
OK Mike, I got the name wrong but it still depends upon oxy-combustion of the fuel (not relevant what the combustion is achieved in). The point is that once the issue of oxy-combustion has been accepted the problem of capture goes away – no nitrogen to dilute the exhaust. Any acid-gas removal process can be applied. B ottom line is that if a carboniferous fuel is burned CO2 is produced and has to somewhere. Secondary and tertiary oil recovery is not really relevant for most places.
Mike: Thanks for the reference. Its pretty much what I understood from previous reading. But I can’t see any mention of CCGT which is entirely a different subject from turbo-expansion. The whole issue of oxy-combustion is not only the initial and operating cost of the huge ASUs but how much of the air compression power is recovered usefully by the turbo-expander. I can’t see oxy-combustion being widely applied anytime soon.