From Bloomberg via Mining.com, October 26:
British energy company Drax Group Plc is planning to sell offset credits tied to power plants in the US that it has yet to build, relying on technology that hasn’t yet been proven to work at scale and by burning fuel that’s still controversial.
“There’s some risk in there,” says Jason Shipstone, chief innovation officer at Drax. “But, like any project, before you press the button to build the project, you want to know that the things that make the business case work are in place.”
Drax wants to build power plants that burn wood chips, capture emissions produced from the process and bury them deep underground. Its plans got a boost after the US passed its largest climate bill that provides $85 in tax credits for every ton of carbon dioxide buried for climate purposes. Drax says the first such plant in the US will be built by 2030.
The cost of capture and burial for Drax’s technology is likely to be more than the sum the US government is providing, says Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at consultancy Carbon Direct. Drax says it won’t provide the capture cost estimate citing commercial sensitivity, but confirmed it will top-up the US government subsidy by selling offset credits. Drax declined to say how much money it might fetch from the sale.
In September, Drax signed a memorandum of understanding with Respira International, a new player in the voluntary carbon market. The deal gives Respira the option to buy 2 million tons of credits, which could become the largest ever volume of carbon dioxide removals traded, according to Drax. The voluntary carbon market has not yet developed a standard for offsets tied to burning wood and burying emissions....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
May 30, 2013:
Bonfire of the Subsidies: Europe Returns to Early Stone Age Fuel as Putin Mocks
From Nov. 2012:
Mocking Europe's Energy Policy: "Putin invites Europeans to Siberia for firewood"
From RT:
European countries should pursue a balanced energy policy, otherwise they will have to buy the firewood in Siberia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has joked.Good yuks from the old propagandists at the former Russia Today.
Putin made it clear again that Europe and Russia are dependent on each other. He was speaking with German businessmen in Berlin on Friday. They gathered at a business conference organized by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“The German public does not like the nuclear power industry for some reason,” Putin said, adding that he would not comment on it. “But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating,” he said anyway.
“You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?” Putin asked, as reported by Itar-Tass. “Then you will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there,” he said, adding that Europeans “do not even have firewood.”
Drax is the largest power plant in Britain at just under 4 megawatts capacity and has been converted from coal to biomass-and-coal to biomass base load with natural gas peakers.
Some of our previous looks at wood-fired electricity in Europe:
Back to the Future: "UK’s Renewable Energy Targets Drive Increases in U.S. Wood Pellet Exports"
Hey Gang, Want To Participate In Britain's Back-to-the-Future "We Burn Wood" Energy Program? (EVA)
"What's Replacing Coal In Europe? Imported Wood"
