VIDEO: Head of carbon capture and storage strategy & engagement at UK energy firm joins BusinessGreen editor in chief James Murray
As head of carbon capture and storage strategy and engagement at Drax, Karl Smyth is leading the energy firm's efforts to achieve so-called 'negative emissions' at its biomass power plants by capturing the resulting emissions and storing them underground.
Having once been the UK's largest emitter as the operator of several major coal power plants, Drax has been rapidly reconfiguring its business in recent years, converting several of its North Yorkshire coal units to run on biomass energy instead, and the company has set a target to firstly become carbon neutral, and then 'carbon negative' by 2030.
Ahead of the world's first Net Zero Festival at the end of September - for which Drax is a partner - Smyth sat down with BusinessGreen editor-in-chief James Murray to give his take on the term 'carbon negative', the potential of BECCS - biomass energy and carbon capture and storage - technology, Drax's ongoing efforts to decarbonise, and how to address concerns about the environmentalimpact of biomass supply chains.
