First UK power plant captures carbon emissions

ScottishPower plant to trial 'clean coal' technology'The UK’s second biggest coal-fired power station made headlines in May as the first in the country to start capturing its carbon dioxide emissions. Or, more accurately, a tiny proportion of them. Yet the project at Longannet, the 40-year-old plant on the Firth of Forth, puts ScottishPower at the forefront of a technology widely seen as crucial for the future of coal – and the climate.

A ‘small-scale replica’ of a full-scale post-combustion carbon capture plant (nevertheless 40 feet long and weighing 30 tonnes) is now running for seven months, recovering CO2 from flue gases. The aim is to test the chemistry of how different amine solutions absorb the CO2, the amount of energy needed to heat the gas-saturated solution to drive off the CO2 and capture it, and how many times the amines can be recycled around this process. Operating on just 1MW of Longannet’s total net capacity of 2.3GW, the technology is processing 1,000 cubic metres of exhaust gas per hour.

While this is carbon capture, it is not quite the much-vaunted ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS), as there’s no long-term storage arrangement in place. But ScottishPower hopes to scale the plant up to 300MW and link it with potential North Sea storage sites, if it’s chosen next year for the Government’s commercial-scale CCS demonstration competition.

Since taking charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband has pinned a lot on the UK’s chances of getting CCS to work – both to keep coal (which still accounts for around a third of electricity delivered to the national grid) in the energy mix, and to develop a new green industry with massive export potential.

As well as the competition to deliver a post-combustion technology demo project by 2014 (focussing on the recovery of CO2 from flue gases), he is proposing a levy on electricity suppliers to fund up to three more, which might include pre-combustion methods of carbon capture.

Another suggestion is to set dates for making CCS compulsory – assuming it proves workable. New coal-fired power station projects (such as the two new 800MW units E.ON so controversially wants to build at Kingsnorth) would only be permitted if ‘carbon capture ready’ – ie they have the space to retrofit the equipment for capturing and transporting out the CO2, an identified site for its eventual storage, and a feasible route for getting there.

Miliband has also proposed that any new project must implement CCS on at least 300MW of its net power capacity from day one, and commit to full-scale retrofit of CCS within five years of the technology being technically and commercially viable. This will be a judgment for the Environment Agency, which it is expected to make by 2020 – though the Government accepts it will need to do something else if that day never comes.

Also on the cards is a proposal to set emissions performance standards to improve the efficiency of all (including existing) coal-fired power stations.

A consultation is now under way (until September) on these proposals, and their possible extension to existing coal-fired power stations. Critics, including Greenpeace, fear the outcome could be a fudge that gives coal a long-term future, while CCS remains just an uncertain promise.

A recent report by AEA Group, published alongside the Government’s consultation document, puts a figure of £2-£4 billion a year by 2030 on the Future Value Of Coal Carbon Abatement Technologies To UK Industry. A leading role in this sector could support 30,000-60,000 jobs, it says. That’s no mean prize – and the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway and others may all be chasing it too. – Roger East

30 June 2009

Roger East