Warren East, the former boss of Rolls-Royce and Arm Holdings, has joined C-Capture, a startup that is carrying out a carbon capture pilot at Drax Group (LSE:DRX).
The appointment was on the same day that Drax got the green light from the government to fit carbon capture technology to two of its wood-biomass burning power units.
C-Capture, a University of Leeds spin-out backed by IP Group PLC (LSE:IPO), BP Ventures and Drax, is developing a solvent-based approach to removing carbon dioxide directly from industrial chimneys, which it says could be the world’s most energy-efficient solution.
The company, which was founded in 2009, has been running a pilot plant at the Drax power station in Yorkshire since 2019 that it plans to use to design a full-scale plant to extract 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per day from one of Drax’s four biomass burners.
Tom White, CEO of C-Capture, said East's experience in commercialising novel technologies, including at ARM and Texas Instruments, "is a true asset to the company at a critical period in our growth".
“His expertise in successfully scaling and transforming businesses will be invaluable as we move forward with the commercialisation of our unique technology and expand our investor base,” he added.
East, who was CEO of ARM from 2001 to 2013 and of Rolls-Royce from 2015 until his retirement at the end of 2022, said: “C-Capture’s carbon capture technology has all the elements needed to break through the barriers currently preventing widespread adoption of this critical technology for the world to achieve net zero.”
Funding rounds by C-Capture in recent years have included £3.5 million raised in 2019 from BP Ventures, Drax and IP Group, and another £8 million in 2021 from the same investors, with additional funding from the British Business Bank’s Future Fund.