The author is Adam Vaughan.
Today is the opening of the UK's biggest carbon capture project, which will use carbon dioxide to make drugs and baking soda.
Carbon capture and storage is seen by the UK's climate change advisers as a crucial technology for reaching net-zero emissions but has had a chequered history with several major projects being canceled.
About 36,000 tonnes of CO2 a year is expected to be captured by the new plant in Northwich. More than 100 times the amount captured in power station pilots by energy firm Drax will be captured by this facility.
Net zero doesn't mean outsourcing manufacturing overseas according to Martin Ashcroft at TCE. He says that the UK can't have decarbonisation by deindustrialization.
The gas-fired power plant captures the CO2 and turns it into a liquid that can be used to make biocarbonate. We are making our own stuff. TCE used to buy most of its CO2 from two of the UK's biggest Fertiliser plants.
The company was concerned that the CO2 captured from flue gas wouldn't be a high grade for the pharmaceutical industry, but it has been shown to be good enough for use in haemodialysis for people with kidney disease. Baking soda is used in the food industry.
The project is similar to a coal plant in India that is using CO2 to make salt, according to Stuart Haszeldine. The CO2 is eventually released to the atmosphere because there is no permanent storage. He says that this is not a permanent and durable removal of fossil carbon released from burning methane gas.
Ashcroft is considering a second carbon capture project at the facility or at a nearby salt plant, and says it is vital that the UK government puts money behind two "CCS clusters" it has backed for the north-west and north- east of England.
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