2CO energy says that it will apply for funding from the government’s new Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) development fund to build a Don Valley Carbon Capture & Storage Power Project.

The plan is to build a fossil-fuel power station fitted with CCS. Planning permission is already in place. The power station would take coal from Hatfield Colliery and generate enough electricity for 1 million homes. The CCS would capture 90 per cent of the carbon emissions created by the power station. The National Grid would build a pipeline to carry the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the power station to North Sea oil fields, where it would be pumped under the sea bed and used to drive out hard to reach oil. The CO2 would then remain under the sea bed.

Writing in 2011 before the government announced its plans for the new Carbon Capture and Strorage development fund, David Douglas of the NUM  welcomed news that 2CO energy was applying for European funding to develop CCS for the Hatfield coal power station. Mr Dunn writes, ” We need to urgently develop clean coal systems. The alternative to these will be vastly more dangerous nuclear power and environmentally wrecking wind turbine estates and pylons covering every square mile of countryside, mountains and seascapes…Readers ought to deluge the Energy Minister with letters demanding the funding is forthcoming and clean coal power given the chance of cleaning up our act.”

Hatfield Colliery new banner-photo from Miners Advice website, thanks

The Miners Advice website has interesting information about the history of the Hatfield Main colliery, where the first shafts were sunk around 1908. The photo of the Hatfield Main Colliery and the Pit Club is from 1916 and comes from the Miners Advice website.