THE Vale could become home to the UK’s biggest carbon dioxide capture pilot plant.

RWE npower this week announced that a planning application is to be submitted to the Vale Council, to introduce the technology to Aberthaw Power Station.

The company hopes that, if approved, it will help cut its global emissions and help tackle climate change.

The project, known as CO2 Capture and Geological Storage, is a technological process to capture CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants and then store the CO2 underground in geological formations away from the atmosphere.

If it is approved, the plant will be at least eight times the size of similar existing projects in the UK, and will operate for twice as long, with the capability of capturing up to 50 metric tonnes of CO2 per day.

Clive Smith, station manager at Aberthaw Power Station, said: "Carbon dioxide capture is likely to play an important role in lowering the carbon intensity of coal generation in the UK and around the world, and a new demonstrator plant here at Aberthaw would ensure that Wales is at the forefront of this technology."

But it’s too little too late for Barry’s Friends of the Earth group leader Keith Stockdale.

"All credit to them for trying," he said.

"But it is closing the gate after the horse has bolted. It’s a small experimental unit, when there are islands sinking in the sea.

"And compared to the wildlife that used to be in Barry when I was a child, you now see very few birds now.

"This is too small, the technology is not proven and if it does work to capture the carbon where are they going to store it?" he added.

RWE npower are hoping to submit the plan to the council in the next two weeks.