A PROJECT that could transform heavy industry in East Yorkshire is set to get 300m euros of EU funding this month, a politician has said.
The White Rose Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project will pump carbon dioxide from Drax Power Station safely out into North Sea stores.
There will be about 15 million tonnes of spare capacity in the pipeline used – and high-emission firms in the Humber could benefit by plugging in.
It could make the region a magnet for manufacturers, since normally dirty industries would be able to go completely green.
Linda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "The plan is to pick up all the emissions for all the heavy industries nearby.
"This will be one of the first programmes in Europe to get funding and we're expecting an announcement this month.
"It does look as if we're finally close."
White Rose will get between 250m and 300m euros (£200m and £240m) from Europe, Ms McAvan said.
She believes extra cash will come from the British Government.
The project is in part a test for the technology, which has been developing for years but almost never put into practice on a major scale.
It will be built by consortium Capture Power, which is made up of companies Alstom, BOC and Drax.
A new 450 megawatt power plant will go up at the latter's power station near Selby, which is already the largest in western Europe and produces about 7 per cent of the UK's electricity supply.
It will burn coal in a process called oxyfuel combustion, which produces high levels of carbon dioxide.
This will then be separated from any leftover oxygen and pumped through East Yorkshire in a pipeline for permanent undersea storage.
The process will dramatically reduce the new generator's emissions, taking about 90 per cent of its greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
However, only about two million tonnes of the pipeline's 17 million- tonne capacity will be used, leaving space for other companies to plug in.
Ms McAvan, who is her parliamentary group's spokesperson on the environment and climate change, said the groundwork for the financial support had been laid years in advance.
She said: "We created the mechanism for this funding in 2008 and there were supposed to be 12 projects up and running by 2012.
"This will be the first project and it will be quite a coup.
"Although we're closing our last coal mines, we burn as much coal as we did 20 years ago. We know we need to switch to cleaner energy."
Drax is also in the middle of converting three of its six existing boilers to burn biomass, sustainably sourced wood pellets.
That £700m project reduces reliance on fossil fuel, whereas the carbon capture programme would prevent emissions from dirty sources reaching the atmosphere.
The White Rose programme could create 2,000 renewables jobs in Yorkshire, according to Capture Power.
A Government front end engineering and design (Feed) contract was awarded to the consortium in December, giving it the go-ahead to explore technical requirements and refine cost estimates.
At the time, Capture Power general manager Leigh Hackett said: "We are delighted our project has been awarded a Feed contract.
"The White Rose project has great potential to demonstrate oxyfuel combustion CCS technology which will benefit other projects in the UK and overseas.
"It also highlights the strategic strength of the Yorkshire and Humber region as a hub for CCS, driving the formation of a cluster for CO2 transportation and storage."
His view was echoed by Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey.
The Liberal Democrat politician believes it has the potential to transform Yorkshire.
He said: "The White Rose project, with National Grid's CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, really offers the potential to kick-start CCS in the region, creating up to 2,000 green jobs.
"Yorkshire is ideally suited to the development of CCS, with lots of large emitters and significant storage space offshore."
Peter Boreham, National Grid's director of European business development, said the Feed announcement could act as a springboard for other carbon storage technology. He said: "For National Grid Carbon, this means we can continue to move forward with the development of a Humber CCS cluster that could transport carbon dioxide from the Yorkshire and Humberside area to offshore storage."
An EU announcement on funding is expected on or before Monday, June 30.
The cash will come from the EU's NER300 programme, which supports low-carbon technology across the continent.
• Business news for Hull and East Yorkshire
