Rolls-Royce and EDF are among the recipients of UK greenhouse gas removal technology funding

Rolls-Royce and EDF are among the recipients of a total of 54 million pounds ($65 million) in funding announced by the British government on Friday to aid in the development of technology to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Britain has stated that greenhouse gas removal technology will be critical to meeting its climate target of net zero emissions by 2050, but only a few small projects are currently operational globally.

EDF was awarded 3 million pounds to fund a Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant that would use excess heat from its proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England.

DAC technology captures carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air as it passes through the plant using chemical reactions, which are then either permanently stored or re-used for industrial purposes.
EDF stated that the funding will allow it to construct a demonstration unit capable of extracting 100 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year in collaboration with engineers from the University of Nottingham, Strata Technology, Atkins, Doosan Babcock, and Sizewell C.

“If the demonstrator project being developed by the consortium is successful, a scaled-up DAC unit powered by heat from Sizewell C could one day capture 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 each year,” EDF said in a statement.