ScottishPower tests carbon capture project

By Andrew Bolger, Scotland Correspondent
Published: May 30 2009 03:00

A test project to extract carbon dioxide emissions from a Scottish power station was launched yesterday - the first time they have been captured from a working coal-fired plant in the UK.
The government plans to back up to four "clean coal" power stations that will capture and store CO 2 , a process seen as essential for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
ScottishPower has in-stalled a small-scale replica of a full carbon capture plant at Longannet in Fife, the UK's second largest power station, which is also close to the depleted North Sea oil and gas fields that scientists believe could make storage reservoirs for CO 2 .
Ignacio Galán, chairman of Iberdrola, the Spanish energy group that owns ScottishPower, said yesterday he believed that the UK could lead the world with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
"There is the potential to create an industry on the same scale as North Sea oil, and we will invest in Scotland and the UK to help realise this potential," he said.
The Holyrood government published a joint industrial and academic study that said all the CO 2 produced by UK coal-fired plants during the next 200 years could be stored under the Scottish area of the North Sea.
Alex Salmond, first min-ister, said: "The potential Scottish capacity is of European significance, comparable with that of offshore Norway, and greater than the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany combined."
The projectwill allow ScottishPower to test the chemistry involved in capturing CO 2 from flue gases.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009