The greening of coal

Drax Power must continue to provide reliable baseload electricity for the UK while reducing its environmental impact. Chief executive Dorothy Thompson says it is making progress. Interview by Tom Nicholls

THE DRAX power station bills itself as the "largest, cleanest and most efficient" coal-fired plant in the UK. In fact, it is the biggest in Europe. The North Yorkshire plant, named after a nearby village, is certainly monumental in scale: the output capacity of its six generators is 4 gigawatts, making it nearly twice the size of its nearest UK rival. Its 12 giant cooling towers – each 114 metres tall – dominate the flat landscape, belching out cloud-like plumes of steam, a temple to industrial innovation. Every day, the grimy, clanking plant devours up to 38,000 tonnes of coal, which is crushed to dust in 60 deafening pulverising mills that vibrate with the ferocity of a Richter 3 earthquak