Power plant will be carbon capture first (From The Northern Echo)

Power plant will be carbon capture first

4:33pm Wednesday 3rd February 2010 in

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A PROPOSED power plant could be the first to benefit from plans to turn the Tees Valley into a centre for companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint.

Progressive energy wants to build the plant on a brownfield site in Teesside that will then pipe its CO2 into storage facilities under the North Sea.

Under plans unveiled yesterday by regional development agency One North East in a prospectus for a carbon capture and storage cluster (CCS) in the North-East, other industries on Teesside could also follow suit.

With higher taxes likely for companies that pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it could both prevent existing companies from moving operations abroad and attract new ones to the area.

It is seen as particularly vital in the North-East due to the presence of the chemical and process industries, which employ an estimated 26,000 people across the region.

An added advantage is that the captured CO2 could be used in ageing North Sea oilfields to increase production and extend field lives.

It will do this by literally pushing oil deposits out of cracks and crevices.

The proposed 850MW Integrated gasification combined cycle power plant would be built at Eston Grange and could be operating by 2015.

Peter Whitton, managing director of Progressive Energy, said “We set out to produce a CCS cluster for Teesside and the North-East several years ago and have designed the network to handle CO2 from both power station and industrial sources.”

There are also plans to convert one of three generating units at Lynemouth Power Station, in Northumberland, to do the same.

The cluster development would have the potential to expand and capture up to at least 15 milllion tonnes of CO2 per year.

Alan Clarke, chief executive of One North East, said: “The development of a carbon capture and storage cluster in the North-East could protect thousands of jobs, as well as giving the region a longerterm, sustainable solution for energy-intensive industries.

“There remains a significant amount of work to complete so that we are in a position to progress further with this project, but this is now being accelerated as part of our plan to develop the industries of the future in the North-East, and the Tees Valley in particular.”