Drax Group and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, Ltd., part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries(MHI)Group, have agreed a long-term contract for Drax to use its carbon capture technology, in what would be the largest deployment of negative emissions in power generation anywhere in the world. (Biomass domes at Drax Power Station. Image courtesy of Drax)
The contract, which combines UK innovation and world-leading Japanese technology, will see Drax license MHI’s unique carbon capture solvent, KS-21, to capture CO2 at its power station near Selby, North Yorkshire.
Drax is already the largest decarbonisation project in Europe, having converted its power station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal, reducing its emissions by more than 85%. By deploying BECCS technology, Drax aims to go further - becoming carbon negative by 2030. The first BECCS unit at Drax could be operational as soon as 2027, supporting thousands of jobs across the North of England as soon as 2024, and capturing and storing at least 8 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030.
Drax is the first company to sign a contract to deploy carbon capture technology at scale in the UK. The project combines MHI’s proven and world-leading technology with offshore geological storage under the North Sea, helping the UK achieve its target to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035 and demonstrates global climate leadership ahead of this weekend’s G7 in Cornwall and of COP26 in Glasgow in November.
As part of the agreement, MHI plans to locate its core CCS team at the company’s European headquarters in London and explore additional employment opportunities in the UK in future. MHI is also looking at ways to strengthen its supply chain, including the potential production of its proprietary solvent in the UK.
Drax has already successfully trialled MHI’s carbon capture technology in a pilot that started in 2020 to test two of MHI’s proprietary solvents (KS-1 and KS-21).
With an effective negative emissions policy and investment framework from the government, BECCS could be deployed at Drax as soon as 2027 - delivering the UK’s largest carbon capture project and permanently removing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
Drax has already kickstarted the planning process to deploy BECCS at its power station in North Yorkshire - if successful, work could get underway to build BECCS at Drax as soon as 2024, with the creation of thousands of jobs.
(IRuniverse)
