A DEAL has been sealed which could deliver the world's largest negative emissions project in North Yorkshire.

Drax Group has agreed a contract with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering to use its carbon capture technology at its power station near Selby.

This would be the largest deployment of negative emissions in power generation anywhere in the world.

Drax is already the largest decarbonisation project in Europe, having converted its power station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal, reducing its emissions by more than 85 per cent.

York Press:

By deploying BECCS technology, Drax aims to become carbon negative by 2030. The first BECCS unit at Drax could be operational by 2027, and capturing and storing at least eight million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030.

Drax is the first company to sign a contract to deploy carbon capture technology at scale in the UK. The project combines MHI’s technology with offshore geological storage under the North Sea, helping the UK achieve its target to cut carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035 and demonstrates global climate leadership ahead this weekend’s G7 in Cornwall and of COP26 in Glasgow in November.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said: “The world urgently needs to move from making climate pledges to taking climate action. This game-changing contract between Drax and MHI could contribute to a decade of global environmental leadership from the UK and provide further stimulus to a post-Covid economic recovery.”

York Press:

Kenji Terasawa, President & CEO, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, said: “We are very proud to have been selected as Drax’s technology partner and we firmly believe that our carbon capture technology will make a significant contribution to the UK and wider global community achieving their net zero targets.”

York Press:

Drax has already kickstarted the planning process to deploy BECCS at its power station in North Yorkshire – if successful, work could get underway to build BECCS at Drax as soon as 2024.