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Chancellor boosts Tees Valley energy projects

Moves announced in the Chancellor’s pre-budget report to support developments in the renewable energy field have been welcomed by representatives of the clean energy industry in the North East. Doctor Dermot Roddy, Chief Executive of Renew Tees Valley, said that the proposals in the Chancellor’s pre-Budget statement on encouraging the use of biofuels and the development of ‘clean coal’ technology would give a further boost to the wide range of renewable energy projects now underway in the Tees Valley.

Mr Brown announced that the Government would be undertaking further work on the potential for the use of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) for a new generation of coal-fired power plants and Doctor Roddy believes that this area has a strong claim to be the site for a demonstration plant.

Doctor Roddy said: “I think we can make a strong case that the CCS project we have been working on with Progressive Energy – and which now has financial backing from Centrica – would offer the ideal opportunity for demonstrating that the technology can work…both in allowing the ‘clean’ use of coal and enabling the use of the ‘captured’ CO2 to extract hard-to-reach oil and gas deposits from North Sea fields. “The Chancellor’s announcement of further measures to encourage greater use of biofuels – both biodiesel and bioethanol – is also good news for the Tees Valley where we are now clearly leading the field in the UK, with the Biofuels Corporation already operating the biggest biodiesel plant in Europe.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .