ScottishPower claims breakthrough

Published on Wednesday 25 November 2009 20:13

SCOTTISHPOWER is claiming a major breakthrough in the race to make coal-fired power stations cleaner, cutting the energy required to remove carbon from emissions by a third.

The utility giant is running a prototype carbon capture and storage scheme at Longannet Power Station in Fife, in conjunction with Aker Clean Carbon.

While the technology has proved that carbon can be removed from the emissions, scientists are testing different chemical compounds to work out how to make the process more efficient.

Currently, carbon capture technology requires about 30 per cent of the total energy output of a coal station to run.

But ScottishPower chief executive Nick Horler said the firm's experiment at Longannet had cut the energy required to run it by a third. Speaking at the Carbon Capture and Storage Forum in London yesterday, Horler said that while technology existed to remove most emissions, it was essential that it was also commercially viable.

The utility, which is owned by Iberdrola of Spain, said it was confident that the process could be made more efficient.

"We are confident that we will cross more barriers, achieve more breakthroughs and deliver even better results," Horler said.

The UK government has said it will invest up to 1 billion in a full-scale carbon capture and storage project – funding that ScottishPower is hoping to win.

ScottishPower said its one-megawatt prototype had been working successfully for 2,000 hours, capturing 90 per cent of the carbon from the emissions, which is then released.

A full-scale project would see the carbon piped into disused oilfields in the North Sea. In August, Shell Oil joined the project.