ScottishPower: Shell,National Grid Join Bid For UK CCS Project
August 13 2009 - 5:40AM
Dow Jones News
Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and U.K. power grid
operator National Grid PLC (NGG) have joined a ScottishPower-led
consortium bidding to gain government funding to create a carbon
and capture storage coal-fired power station by 2014, the
Scottish-based utility said Thursday.
ScottishPower, the U.K. arm of Spanish utility Iberdrola SA
(IBE.MC), has now set up a four-member consortium which includes
Norwegian carbon dioxide removal specialists Aker Clean Carbon.
ScottishPower already has a carbon and capture pilot project
running at its Longannet coal-fired power plant in Scotland. The
new technology captures carbon emissions from the plant and pumps
them underground for storage in areas including depleted oil and
gas fields and underground salt caverns.
ScottishPower plans to retrofit about half of the plant's 600
megawatt production capacity with the new technology by 2014 it if
succeeds in getting the government grant.
The technology would reduce Longannet's CO2 emissions by 90%,
the company said.
-By Alex MacDonald, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20 7842 9328;
alex.macdonald@dowjones.com