Drax Submits Plans to Build World’s Largest CCS Project

(Drax Group/Biomass Magazine) Renewable energy company Drax has submitted plans to build the world’s largest carbon capture facility at its North Yorkshire power station.

The company plans to invest £2 billion in the 2020s in its plans to develop two bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) units, creating and supporting thousands of jobs in the North and enabling the U.K. to lead the world in a vital new technology needed to address the climate crisis.

Work to build BECCS at Drax could start as soon as 2024 and once operational the two units combined will capture at least 8 million metric tons of CO₂ per year, making it the largest carbon capture and storage project in power in the world.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO said, “Drax’s BECCS project provides the U.K. with a once in a generation opportunity to kickstart a whole new sector of the economy and lead the world in a vital green technology needed to address the climate crisis.

“Drax aims to invest billions of pounds and create thousands of jobs developing BECCS in the U.K., provided that the U.K. Government has in place policies to support the feasibility and delivery of negative emissions technologies.

“BECCS at Drax will not only permanently remove millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, but it will also generate the reliable, renewable power this country needs. No other technology can do both.”

The submission of its application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) to the Planning Inspectorate marks a major milestone in the project and follows two major consultations carried out by Drax, which sought to gain views from the public and key stakeholders on its BECCS plans.

Deploying BECCS on two of its generating units will support Drax’s plans to become a carbon negative company by 2030 – permanently removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than is produced right across its operations.

Drax plans to source up to 80 percent of the materials and services it needs to build its BECCS project from British businesses. It recently announced a partnership with British Steel to identify opportunities to source the steel to build BECCS from its Scunthorpe and Teesside steelworks. READ MORE

Excerpt from Bioenergy Insight: The UK Conservative Party is now opposing Drax's plans to fit its Selby biomass station with Beccs (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) technology, reported The Times.

Although the Conservatives had previously approved the proposals, Claire Coutinho, shadow net zero secretary, said the case for the scheme 'simply unravelled' on closer inspection.

She said: “We cannot go green by burning trees at huge cost to the public. If the widespread burning of forests is part of the solution to climate change, then we have to ask ourselves what problem we are trying to solve.”

Phil MacDonald, managing director at Ember, welcomed Coutinho’s comments, saying she could help bring the scheme to an end.

“It’s already a complex long-term project that wouldn’t even begin in this parliament,” he said. “We now know that a possible next government would not support it.”

He said the scheme would 'soak up' billions of pounds in R&D, which could be used for other applications.

However, Mark Sommerfeld, deputy director of policy, REA (Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology), said Coutinho's claims are 'counter to the science-based scenarios' for achieving a secure and affordable decarbonised system.

He pointed out that the need for sustainable biomass - and therefore Beccs - has been repeatedly recognised by the Climate Change Committee, as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

As well as that, the last Conservative government, in power until July this year, highlighted the 'critical importance' of Beccs in its 2023 Biomass Strategy. READ MORE