CCS is being tested for the first time in the UK on a working coal-fired Power Station, as energy company, Scottish Power, is bidding for a £1 billion government competition to test the technology which could lead to a full scale carbon capture plant becoming operational by 2014. (Source: www.timesonline.co.uk, 30-05-09)
“This is the first time that CCS technology has been switched on and working at an operational coal-fired power station in the UK. It’s a major step forward in delivering the reality of carbon-free fossil fuel electricity generation.”
Quote: Scottish Power Chief Executive, Nick Horler
In a consortia bid between Scottish Power, Aker Clean Carbon of Norway, which is developing the capturing technology, and Marathon Oil, the partners will work on the techniques to provide undersea installations, and the pipelines needed to transport and store carbon dioxide under the North Sea.
The project and the site
The UK government’s recent Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) competition has led to a new generation of coal-fired power stations who can demonstrate how to limit their CO2 emissions. The report “Carbon Choices” assessed all three semi-finalists and announced that the winner is Longannet.
Longannet power station is based in Fife, Scotland and opened in 1969 and is the second largest energy generating station in the UK and the third largest in Europe, after Bełchatów in Poland and Drax in West Yorkshire, England.
The project will comprise of a 30-tonne test unit that will process 1,000 cubic metres of exhaust gas per hour. Carbon dioxide will be removed from the chimney using chemicals and turned into a liquid, ready for storage underground. The eventual aim is to capture about 90 per cent of the carbon dioxide that is emitted.
The process involved using nitrogen-hydrogen compounds called amines which stick to carbon dioxide, enabling it to be extracted from other exhaust gases was hoped to reduce the amount of energy used in carbon capture to about 12 per cent of Longannet’s power output. (Source: Times Online.
The project also aims to reduce the amount of energy needed to actually capture the carbon emitted. Current technologies would require between 25-30 per cent of Longannet’s electricity output to be diverted into carbon capture if all of the station’s emissions were to be cleaned up.
Project Outcomes and the future of CCS
The are potentially large economic and energy saving gains to the UK and globally if this project were to be a success, and the lessons and knowledge gained could be shared across EU counterparts and the rest of the world, which is said to account for an estimated 50,000 fossil-fuelled power stations. Academics are involved in the scheme, one from The University of Edinburgh, to share in the project learning throughout the pilot delivery stage.
Whilst the WWF team are lobbying for government support in creating new Emission’s Performance Standards in CCS activities, similar to those in California, in an attempt to drive existing fossil-fuelled plants to cleaner operation.
In a recent WWF report, it also explains the economic benefits of CCS technology in that:
- If the technology is tested on a purpose built new coal power station as proposed at Kingsnorth in Kent, or Tilbury in Essex overall emissions from the power sector could increase by 32 million tonnes CO2 between 2014 and 2025 – roughly equivalent to running an extra 4.5 coal-fired power stations for a year.
- By comparison, fitting carbon capture to the existing power station at Longannet in Fife would reduce emissions by 14.5 million tonnes of CO2 over the same period – equivalent to turning off 2 coal-fired power stations for a year.
