As Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire marks 50 years of bringing power to the people The Yorkshire Post's Graham Walker goes behind the scenes of the largest power plant in the country to look at its history of resilience and innovation expressed by some of the 1,000 dedicated workers who keep Drax running smoothly .
Full story and more see https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
Full story and more see https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Drax Power Station is celebrating our 50th year this year. Built in the early 1970s it's
00:10now coming to our 50th year operation and during that time it's been doubled in size
00:16in the 1980s. It was built here to use the coal from the then new Selby Coalfields, now
00:23a long defunct and in the last 20 years Drax has been converting over to using renewable
00:32sustainable biomass. We've now completed that process and we're looking forward then to
00:37capturing carbon and putting that underground to lock it away forever. And ultimately we
00:42have plans to capture 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from this plant. That's the
00:47equivalent of taking 3 million cars off the road. We are producing enough power for 4
00:53million homes. What we're looking forward to is another hopefully 50 years producing
01:00power on this site and helping the UK reach its net zero goals. It's really stood the
01:04test of time, it's obviously been here 50 years now so we're here to maintain them,
01:09to carry out the repairs, to ensure that it can go into the future for another 50 years
01:13and do the job that it's planned to do. It's a nice place to be part of and you do feel
01:19proud to have got through everything to work here and then you start driving on your way
01:24to work and you see it and you go, that's quite nice, that's where I work. And people
01:28sort of, everyone around here knows that if it does another 50 I'm happy. I was attracted
01:33to Drax because it had longevity, we were moving in a different way, we were doing a
01:38growth potential change opportunity. It was something different that was being done within
01:43the power station industry and it was being done on a massive scale. As someone who's
01:47always lived locally to Drax and worked here for a long time, I'm incredibly proud to be
01:52part of the Drax family. We've seen a lot of changes and the innovations that have been
01:57undertaken across the years that I've been here have ensured that the plant stays current
02:01and able to still run in today's climate.
02:13For more information visit www.fema.gov