Drax Group (LSE:DRX) has announced plans to create a new business aimed at leading large-scale carbon capture projects around the world.
Headed by ex-Amazon Web Services infrastructure expert Laurie Fitzmaurice, the new business will oversee Drax’s carbon capture projects in the US from headquarters in Houston, the FTSE 250-listed firm said on Thursday.
This includes plans to fit carbon capture technology to Drax’s biomass power plants, which burn wood pellets to produce electricity.
Plans to retrofit two of the four generators with such technology at Drax’s North Yorkshire plant, which were approved by the government this month, will not be taken on by the new unit, however.
“We have a limited window of opportunity to capitalise on our first mover advantage and I am confident that the time is right for this approach,” chief executive Will Gardiner said.
Drax has long discussed the incorporation of its bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, which is set to create a model known as BECCS.
This would essentially see emissions from its wood-burning plants prevented from reaching the atmosphere and placed into long-term storage instead.
Source: Drax
After the pellets are burned to produce power, flue gas containing emitted carbon dioxide would be cooled and treated before being sent through an absorption tower to remove the greenhouse gas.
Within this absorption tower, the cooled and treated gas would be subject to a chemical reaction using amine solvent, which is a compound of ammonia.
The resultant substance would then be reheated to create a pure stream of carbon dioxide, which would subsequently be sent to storage.
Given the North Yorkshire station’s location, it would fit into an area known as the Humber ‘zero carbon cluster,’ which makes up one of the two carbon capture hubs proposed by the government.
From these, carbon captured from industrial processes would be piped through existing repurposed infrastructure into depleted North Sea oil and gas fields.
Source: Global CCS Institute
According to Drax, this would create negative emissions from its plants, with the idea being the process of using sustainably sourced wood to power these are already carbon neutral.
Such claims have been a topic of controversy, however, with a National Audit Office report finding on Wednesday that the government could not prove whether Britain’s biomass sector met its own sustainability rules and Drax's Yorkshire plant representing the UK’s single largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020.