Scottish Power Test Carbon Capture Technology

www.scottishpower.com

Scottish Power has just unveiled, what can only be described as the UK’s first carbon capture and storage kit fitted to an operational coal plant. That has even prompted one rival energy firm to label this new claim as “greenwash.”

Just the other day, Scottish Power was able to switch on the portable prototype at its 2,300MW coal plant that is located at Longannet, near Fife. This is the third largest coal plant in all of Europe.

Now, over the course of the next seven months, Scottish Power will capture the carbon emissions that are produced from 1mw of the coal plant. This is being done to test the chemical process in the hopes of rolling out this technology on a large scale. After this process, the captured emissions will be released into the atmosphere, rather than stored. This is a fact that the company omitted to mention.

The chief executive of Scottish Power, Nick Horler, said that this is the first time that carbon capture and storage technology had been switched on and working at an operational coal fired power station in the UK. He also made note that this is a big step forward in the delivering of a reality that supports carbon free fossil fuel electricity generation.

Nick Horler also said that the test unit uses the exact same technology that is aim to be retrofitted to the station for a commercial scale carbon capture and storage project in time for 2014.

Robin Oakley of Greenpeace said that some people are going to be shocked to find out that Scottish Power is only testing chemical process, rather than doing the hard bit, which is storing the carbon.

For more information visit: www.scottishpower.com