Carbon capture at Hatfield welcomed by local Euro MP

1.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 16th Oct 2009

News that the European Commission has declared its support for the building of a new coal-fired power station in Hatfield near Doncaster has been welcomed by Diana Wallis, the region's Liberal Democrat Euro MP.

Diana Wallis, Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire & the Humber says that plans for a new "clean coal" power station to be constructed at Hatfield by Richard Budge's Powerfuel Power company, should be welcomed as being great news for the region's economy and for combating global climate change. The European Commission announced an initial subsidy of €180 million (£169m) from the EU economic recovery programme for the project, one of seven carbon capture and storage demonstration projects to be built across Europe, which will include capturing the carbon at source and storing it under the North Sea.

Diana Wallis, a Vice President of the European Parliament introduced the concept of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at a seminar in the Parliament in March 2006. She said in Brussels:

"This announcement should be welcomed as being great news for the region's economy and for combating global climate change. Hopefully, it will the first of many such projects as the idea is to develop a 'Humber Cluster' of CCS projects that within 15 years could curb the emission of up to 70 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. It should put Yorkshire and the Humber squarely on the map as an important centre for this increasingly important technology."

The Powerfuel project has the backing of National Grid, which aims to build a network of CO2 pipelines linking power stations and major industrial installations across Yorkshire & the Humber.