Drax and the BBPA are working on a new way to put fizz in drinks after Europe’s CO2 shortage

A UK power firm has revealed it is in talks with the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) to find an eco-friendly source of carbon dioxide following a CO2 shortage earlier this year.

Drax Group — which runs Europe’s biggest biomass-fuelled power station in Selby, North Yorkshire — is trialling technology to help it capture its carbon dioxide emissions, which could then be used to keep the fizz in the country’s drinks in an eco-friendly way, it announced on Friday.

Earlier this year brewers and pubs were hit by a carbon dioxide shortage caused by the closure of a number of production plants across Europe, with the UK being the “hardest hit” in the continent.

Wholesaler Booker began rationing sales of beer and cider to its customers in June, capping purchases at 10 cases of beer, and five of cider or soft drinks each in an effort to lessen the impact.

However, Drax has said it will begin trialling a Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) project in the UK. The company plans to capture the CO2 produced by generating power at one of its biomass units, which it claims could provide enough gas to produce 32,000 pints of beer per day, or 5.7 million pints in six months.

Drax said that the BECCS project is the “first of it’s kind in Europe,” and suggested that opening up pathways for the beer and pub trade to use the CO2 produced from its renewable power generation has the potential to allow businesses to “make their processes carbon neutral.”

It is currently in talks with the BBPA to see how the technology could be used to benefit drinks producers and the pub industry.

BBPA chief Brigid Simmonds said: “Pubs serve as much as 10 million pints of beer per day, so the recent shortfall of CO2 was most unwelcome. We hope that these discussions with Drax Group and the potential to increase access to a new source of CO2 in the UK will help ensure that a shortage does not happen again.”

If successful, the technology could be scaled up to capture even more CO2 at the power station.

“This pilot not only has the potential to ensure the UK meets its climate targets,” Drax Group chief executive Will Gardiner said, “but for the carbon captured to also help to keep the nation’s beer from going flat – and we’d certainly raise a glass to that.”