U.K. Bets On ‘$40 Billion’ Carbon Capture Tech, But Critics Say It’s Hot Air
- Media Manager
- Jan 19, 2024
- 1 min read
Forbes
Written By: David Vetter
Published: January 19th, 2024
Photo Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
The U.K. government has placed a big bet on bioenergy, approving a plan this week to fit the country’s largest power station, Drax, with taxpayer-funded carbon capture technology that some analysts say could cost upward of $40 billion. Critics have spoken out against the plan, with researchers and NGOs saying that BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) is an unproven and costly distraction that won’t help the country reach its climate goals.
Claims and counterclaims continue to swirl around the project, with much hinging on its success or failure. So is BECCS the climate solution we've been searching for, or just a mirage?
What Is BECCS?
Bioenergy generation (the "B" in BECCS) relies on the burning of biomass such as wood pellets to generate electricity. Carbon capture technology uses solvents to isolate CO2 from the gases produced when the biomass is burned. That CO2 is then stored as a liquid, with Drax planning to bury it in depleted gas fields beneath the North Sea.
Wood For The Trees
Bioenergy's problems could be even more fundamental than that: In 2022, an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama program found evidence to suggest that Drax was responsible for cutting down old, slow-growth forests in Canada to fuel its generators. These allegations caused the U.K. energy watchdog, Ofgem, to launch its own investigation into Drax. That prompted questions from the U.K. Parliament and spurred environmental groups to launch campaigns against the company.
