A RADICAL plan by mining entrepreneur Richard Budge to build the world’s largest “clean coal” power plant in Yorkshire has been given new life after the European Union said it was considering an immediate €250m (£219m) cash injection to jump-start a project the UK government has refused to support.
Budge’s company, Powerfuel, wants to build a 900MW, low-emission power station fed by the Hatfield colliery, which he reopened in 2007. It would be the first and largest plant equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which strips CO2 from power-plant exhausts and buries it deep underground in geological formations.
The proposal was thrown into limbo last year when the British government disqualified it from a competition that will award “several hundred million pounds” in public funds that industry says is necessary to build the first plant equipped with the experimental technology.
Last week, however, the EU said the Hatfield project was one of four it was considering for an immediate €250m injection. The cash has been made available under a ¤5 billion economic recovery package unveiled last week. Read more at tol
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