Drax Power Station

Drax Power Station is the United Kingdom's largest coal-fired power plant and the second largest coal plant in Europe. It owned by Drax Power and is located near Selby, North Yorkshire in Northern England.

Background
The plant has six 660 MW generating units, and a maximum capacity of 3,945 MW, producing around 24 Terawatt-hours (TWh) annually -- making it the largest coal power station in the UK.

Drax employs over 700 people and provides about 7% of Britain's electrical power demand.

Drax station
The six units are served by independent wet limestone-gypsum flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) plant, which removes at least 90% of the sulphur dioxide from the flue gases. The station's chimney is the tallest in the UK. The station has a maximum potential consumption of 36,000 metric tons (tonnes) of coal a day, and uses between 7,000,000 and 11,000,000 metric tons annually. Coal is partly supplied by nearby Kellingley Colliery, with the bulk coming from Poland. The Drax station generates around 1,500,000 of ash and 22,800,000 of carbon dioxide each year.

Nonviolent direct action against Drax
On the morning of June 13, 2008, 40 Camp for Climate Action activists, a small number disguised as railway workers, flagged down and stopped a coal train on its way to Drax Power Station. Protesters climbed onto the train and unloaded almost 20 tons of coal onto the tracks while others chained themselves to the train. A banner was unfurled reading 'Leave it in the Ground!'. Riot police stormed the train and removed the protesters around midnight. 29 were arrested.

Proposed stations
In February 2012, Drax said it was scrapping plans to build two biomass plants in the UK with Germany's Siemens. The company said a lack of financial help from the government was the driving force behind the decision, which involved an investment of around £1.4bn.

Drax has also shelved plans to build a second plant at another UK site, but is exploring options to develop a biomass facility with Siemens at the Immingham Port on the River Humber.

Drax Carbon Capture and Storage project
The White Rose CCS Project is a proposed 426 megawatt coal-fired power station with carbon capture and storage. In February 2011 a consortium of Alstom UK Ltd, Drax Power Limited and National Grid announced that they were seeking EU NER300 funding for a new oxy-fired CCS demonstration project based at the site of the existing Drax Power Station. The initial media release stated that National Grid, "together with an experienced offshore partner, will develop a transportation system out to the southern North Sea where the CO2 will be permanently stored." In late October 2012 the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced that the project had been short-listed as one of four bidders "for the next phase of the UK’s £1bn Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) competition."

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