Ensus to add carbon capture facility
Jun 24 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal
A £23M CARBON capture facility is to be added to one of the UK’s biggest bioethanol plants which is currently being built on Teesside for opening next year.
Ensus, which is investing £250m in the plant at Wilton, announced yesterday it had signed an agreement with Norwegian company Yara to construct the £23m facility, which will turn CO2 gas from the bioethanol plant into liquid CO2 for use in the UK food and drink industry.
This comes just days after Middlesbrough-based company Helius Energy announced it will start work on a £200m renewable energy plant in Lincolnshire by autumn, with plans for a second plant in Hartlepool creating over hundreds of jobs likely to be submitted by the end of the year.
Alwyn Hughes, chief executive of Ensus, said: “We are delighted to have made this arrangement with Yara. The whole point of building our plant is to refine wheat into value-adding products for the food and transport fuel industries.
“This means that the whole output from our plant will now be going into food or fuel – two thirds as animal feed or supplies to the food and beverage industries and one third as biofuel to help the UK meet its commitments under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation.
“This is an important part of the UK’s strategy to promote green energy and reduce carbon emissions from transport, while scaling back our dependency on imported fossil fuels such as oil.”
The Ensus plant and the Yara plant will employ over 200 people when they become operational. Over 800 construction workers are currently involved in building the bioethanol plant.
Helius Energy was last week given the go-ahead by Energy Minster Malcolm Wicks to build a biomass power plant at Stallingborough on the Humber estuary, creating 267 jobs during construction and around 75 to run the facility. This will be the company’s first such plant and it says it will be the first of a number with additional “clone” developments identified for Hartlepool, Scotland and the North West.
John Seed, managing director of Helius Energy, said the company had identified a plot of land owned by Able UK at its Graythrop site – adjacent to ghost ships – as suitable.
“Now we have secured planning permission for the first site, we will swiftly be progressing all of the other sites. This is an important milestone for the company and a significant increase in the company’s status. A step change in the company’s development,” he said.
