Less carbon capture investment is to be made by Drax just weeks after the government agreed to pay extra public subsidies worth about half a billion pounds a year to help the company develop its carbon capture project after 2027, as we recently reported.
The Drax Group said it will provide less carbon capture investment as The Guardian reporting last week that the tree-burning power plant would reduce investment to fitting the technology at the Selby power plant unless the government provided clarity over the returns it could expect to make from the upgrade. The action was taken despite securing an extra three years of government subsidies and reporting highest earnings in its 35-year history which showed adjusted earnings rising to £1.06bn last year, above its profits of £1.01bn the year before. These profits are largely thanks to the billion-pound subsidies given to Group.
On 1 March the Yorkshire Post reported that the Yorkshire carbon capture company backed by Drax, BP and the Government has made almost all of its staff redundant as a new owner is sought for the business. Dozens of people have left their jobs at C-Capture,
a spin-out company created in 2009 following research done at the University in Leeds, just three months after it announced it was seeking new buyers. The firm has been working for years on commercialising a patented system of capturing carbon dioxide from industrial flue gases in a way it describes as safe, low cost and environmentally conscious.
The UK government has a near 20% stake in the company after the state-owned British Business Bank participated in an £8m funding round in 2021 alongside private investors. C-Capture also received a £1.7m Government grant in 2022.