A decision by Drax to pull out of a £1billion carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition means a rival project at Grangemouth should get a shot at the funding, an industry specialist has claimed.
A scheme to transform a gas-fired power station at Peterhead backed by oil giant Shell was the last CCS project remaining in UK government competition when Drax pulled out last week, putting it in pole position.
But a proposed project at Grangemouth, which didn’t make the cut to the final two developments named as preferred bidders in 2013, should be reconsidered for funding, Stuart Haszeldine, professor of carbon capture and storage at Edinburgh University, has said.
The Shell-led project at SSE’s power station at Boddam became the most advanced CCS scheme in the UK and the only one that could win the £1billion backing, when its rival in North Yorkshire pulled out.
Drax said it would halt further investment in the project to capture carbon emitted from the coal fired power station in the wake of “critical reversals” in UK government support for renewable energy.
Recently, the project at Peterhead, where Shell hopes to pump gas from Peterhead Power Station into the Goldeneye reservoir 62 miles offshore, was given backing by researchers at the British Geological Society.
Construction of the facility at Boddam would create work for about 400 people, rising to a peak of 600. The development of CCS technology is viewed by many as crucial to reducing harmful carbon emissions over the coming decades, and Shell wants to use the north-east to pioneer the first gas-based system of its kind.
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