The giant coal power station at Drax in Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, with its 12 cooling towers, is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. It sends some 23 million tonnes of carbon dioxide up its stacks each year while supplying up to a tenth of the UK’s power. But that pollution is rapidly being reversed helped by the growth of forests in the United States and some handy holes beneath the North Sea. The owners of the Drax power plant are replacing coal with wood pellets—made from production forests in North America—while burying the emissions. Combined with growing trees to replace all those burned, the mega-polluter could one day be transformed into a power station that delivers negative emissions.
Climate change dream scenario: A power plant with negative emissions
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