UK Power Stations in CO2 Capture "Beauty Pageant"
Date: 15-May-07
Country: UK
Author: Pete Harrison
UK power plants were last week named as some of the dirtiest in Europe and operators are keen to lower their carbon emissions by investing in nuclear, renewable energy or carbon capture.
Most scientists believe man-made CO2 emissions, largely caused by burning hydrocarbons, are the primary cause of climate change -- with coal-fired power stations the worst polluters.
But green alternatives such as wind and hydro are still a long way from being able to meet Britain's growing energy needs, while nuclear power faces high building costs, long construction lead times and public hostility.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is therefore seen as a potentially attractive way for Europe to meet its target of cutting CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020. The EU plans 12 CCS projects by 2015.
The UK government is expected to announce this month how it will choose which of at least four possible CCS projects it will fund, probably through direct subsidies or tax breaks.
"We're confident that there's a future for coal, alongside gas, renewables and nuclear," said Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of the UK arm of Germany's E.ON AG, which has proposed a CCS project at Killingholme in northern England.
"However, the project will only go ahead if the government supports the development of this cutting-edge technology."
The government has not named a figure for funding, but one of the bidders, Powerfuel -- an independent company which has revived the Hatfield colliery in northern England and plans a coal-fired plant there by 2012 -- says up to 600 million pounds could be available in total.
"There's a bit of a beauty pageant going on right now," said another of the bidders.
READY TO GO
Britain's best-known CCS project is at the Peterhead gas-fired power station in Scotland -- a joint venture between oil major BP and Scottish & Southern Energy.
The proposed 350 megawatt scheme would extract clean-burning hydrogen from natural gas to power its turbines. The remainder of the gas, in the form of CO2, would then be pumped into the almost empty Miller oil field under the North Sea.
"Most importantly, Peterhead it is ready to go," said a spokesman for SSE. "We have the project plan, land, engineering, and a well-advanced planning proposal.
"All the technology is proven at the desired scale -- we are only demonstrating the ability to integrate technologies," he added.
But rivals say that in order to be useful, CCS projects should be coal-fired, making it easier to export the technology to booming economies such as China where coal is the norm.
"Centrica's Teesside project could be fully exportable to developing nations that have significant coal generation, helping UK Plc," said Jake Ulrich, Managing Director of Centrica Energy.
Scottish & Southern says that despite being gas-fired, its Peterhead project would be exportable, as the same technology can be applied to gas and coal.
CO2 BIN
Some bidders say geography favours a cluster of projects in northern England, which could share infrastructure, including Centrica's at Teesside, E.ON's at Killingholme and Powerfuel's at Hatfield.
"We're talking with Teesside development agencies about the possibility of establishing a 'common CO2 bin', taking CO2 from other industry and using the same pipeline to dispose of it," said a Centrica spokesman.
"This could help offset some of the high initial cost to build such a pipeline."
But Peterhead's remoteness could work in its favour, with local politicians arguing the region needs the 1,000 construction jobs and 90 power station jobs more than rival projects in England.
Other proposals have other advantages.
RWE npower's proposed Blyth Power Station in northern England, which is not competing for the current round of funding, could burn plant biomass, viewed as carbon neutral because it soaks up CO2 from the atmosphere during growth.
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