Page 6 - Gi_August2019

industry & Government news

DIGEST steam and power for its manufacturing
works in Winnington, where the
Indian-owned company produces high
purity sodium bicarbonate used in
pharmaceuticals and food.
The captured carbon dioxide will
then be purified, liquefied and used
in the manufacturing process. Liquid
CO₂ is a key raw material used to make
sodium bicarbonate.
TATA TO BUILD UK’S million to the scheme after creating two
The government will contribute £4.2
funding programmes, collectively worth
£44 million, to encourage deployment
BIGGEST CARBON of carbon capture technology.
Although the Cheshire scheme
will be the largest to date in the UK
when it is ready in 2021, is still only
CAPTURE PROJECT a demonstration project. The 40,000
tonnes of carbon dioxide captured
will represent 11 per cent of the total
emissions from the heat and power
plant at the Winnington works, which
also supplies other facilities and other
local industrial businesses.
Britain is yet to develop a
commercial-scale carbon capture
project, which would typically catch
one million or more tonnes of carbon
dioxide a year. Norway developed its
first project at that scale in 1996.
Other demonstration projects in the
UK include a scheme at Drax, the UK’s
biggest power plant in North Yorkshire,
which captures one tonne of carbon
dioxide a day, although that is currently
being re-released into the atmosphere as
the company has yet to find a use for it.
THE TATA CHEMICALS SITE IN The UK’s slow approach to carbon
WINNINGTON, CHESHIRE capture and storage was criticised this
year in a report by MPs on the Business,
BRITAIN’S BIGGEST CARBON capture on Climate Change as “crucial” to Energy and Industrial Strategy Select
project is to be built by Tata Chemicals hitting the UK’s newly adopted 2050 net Committee. The technology is seen
Europe (TCE) in Cheshire, after securing zero emissions target. as critical for dealing with emissions
government funding. The Financial Times reports that the from heavy industries, such as cement,
The scheme will mark a step forward £16.7 million demonstration project will chemicals, steel, and oil refining. The
in developing a carbon capture usage capture 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide BEIS committee warned that without
and storage industry in Britain — a a year from a gas-fired plant installed the technology “many of our heavy
technology described by the Committee by Tata Chemicals in 2000 to provide industries could face closure”.

NATIONAL GRID COMPLETES SALE OF the UK wrestles with questions over the
deepening role of state-backed Chinese
GAS NETWORK TO CIC-BACKED GROUP companies in its economy, reports The
Financial Times. Earlier this year, moves by
Downing Street to allow Huawei to build
A CONSORTIUM THAT includes and businesses, will see the Quadgas non-core parts of Britain’s 5G network
China’s main sovereign wealth fund consortium — led by China Investment escalated tensions between London
has completed the purchase of the Corporation and the infrastructure and Washington, which has banned
UK’s largest gas distribution network arm of Australian investment bank the Chinese company from selling its
from National Grid. Macquarie — take control of the final products to US carriers and American
The £2 billion divestment of National part of the business, after buying a 61 suppliers from buying them. The ban
Grid’s remaining stake in Cadent, which per cent stake three years ago. has since been temporarily halted.
sends gas to around 11 million UK homes The completion of the sale comes as National Grid declined to comment on

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News.indd 1 18/07/2019 15:30