PLEA Network

30 June 2017, Renew Economy, Another blow to CCS, as EU power giants bow out of Dutch project. European power giants Engie and Uniper have withdrawn from a test project to capture and store carbon dioxide generated by one of several major new coal plants in the Netherlands, dealing yet another blow to the prospects of “clean coal” technology, in which the Australian government and fossil fuel lobbyists still hold much stock. Reuters reported this week that the two companies – one of which, Engie, the majority owner of Australia’s Loy Yang B brown coal-fired power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, and who recently closed Hazelwood, – had told the Dutch government they no longer intended to participate in the CCS project, the biggest of its kind in Europe. Holland’s economic affairs Minister Henk Kamp said in a statement he would “examine whether legal steps can be taken to recoup” unspecified subsidies paid to the companies if they had not changed their minds by mid-September. The minister also said that the companies’ withdrawal from the project “changed nothing” in the government’s resolve to develop large-scale CCS demonstration projects. Read More here