Campaigners say the UK government will set its own climate targets on the basis of claims that the Drax power station will produce “negative emissions” as new rules could mean carbon savings would be passed on to the US. He is said to be betting on
The owners of a North Yorkshire power station have promised ministers that a major project to capture carbon dioxide emissions from burning biomass wood pellets imported from US forests will count as negative emissions in the UK carbon budget. did.
However, a working group convened by the United Nations climate change authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is aiming to draft national greenhouse gas accounting rules that will apply to “carbon removal” technologies from as early as 2027. The meeting was started.
Campaigners from environmental group Biofuel Watch warn there is a “strong argument” that so-called negative emissions from bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, known as VEX, should be “attributable to the country of origin of the wood”. did. Rather than a place to burn it to generate electricity.
Alms Ernsting, co-director of Biofuels Watch, said: “We can't second-guess what the IPCC expert group will decide, but neither can the UK government.”
The government is considering whether to extend Drax's subsidy system, which pays him around 500 million pounds a year, beyond its 2027 deadline until the end of 2010. The FTSE 250 company agreed to pay a £25m fine earlier this year for misrepresenting its wood pellet procurement, but has already paid £7bn since work began in 2012 to convert a former coal-fired power station to biomass power. It has received grants worth more than 1,000 pounds.
Ernsting said: “So if the UK government grants billions of pounds of new subsidies to support Drax’s development of Vex, this will also apply to the US, Canada and other countries that export pellets to Drax. There is a good chance it will benefit the greenhouse gas budget, not in the UK.”
Drax has claimed in the past that its biomass production is “carbon neutral.” That's because the emissions from the company's smokestacks are offset by the emissions absorbed by the trees grown in North America to make the pellets.
Last year, the company quietly stopped using the language after its own independent advisory committee warned against repeating the claim. The company still maintains that installing carbon capture technology in its flues in the 2030s will make it a carbon-negative power plant, a company spokesperson said. That's because it's a “widely accepted scientific opinion.”
This view has been challenged in recent years by an increasing number of scientific studies by European scholars. They say the lag between when emissions leak from power plant smokestacks and when new trees can absorb carbon creates a “carbon debt” and accelerates the climate crisis in the short term. I am concerned that this is a possibility.
A Drax spokesperson said the IPCC Expert Group does not expect to amend the rules regarding the Beccs project because its research focuses on new carbon capture technologies, such as direct air capture. Ta. However, the minutes of the first meeting, seen by the Guardian, included a presentation on the feasibility of developing new or updated carbon accounting methods for technologies including Beccs.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We follow the agreed international approach to estimating and reporting greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, ensuring that countries that capture CO2 continue to benefit from it. We are expecting 'minus emissions.
“Subsidy for large-scale biomass power generators is due to end in 2027 and we are considering evidence for potential support beyond this,” the spokesperson added.
