A MULTI-MILLION pound carbon capture project will be built at a popular Dorset attraction.

Weymouth SEA LIFE Centre will be the location for a pilot plant being backed by a £3million grant from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The SeaCURE system makes use of renewable energy to remove carbon from seawater before releasing the seawater back into the ocean where it can then naturally replenish the levels by sucking carbon from the atmosphere.

Brunel University London, one of the collaborative partners, liken the process to an industrial equivalent to capturing the carbon dioxide bubbles from a fizzy drink.

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Other organisations in the project, being led by the University of Exeter, include Plymouth Marine Laboratory and, industrial partners, Eliquo Hydrok

Tamsin Mutton-McKnight, General Manager at SEA LIFE Weymouth, said: “At SEA LIFE we are passionate about the marine environment and the wider health of our planet.

“SEA LIFE’s engaging and immersive experiences inspire people and are invaluable in raising awareness of, and support for, conservation and creating future ambassadors for preserving the world’s waters.

“We are therefore very excited to be involved in this important project, which has the potential to make an enormous positive difference on conservation for the future.”

SeaCURE said the use of carbon capture infrastructure would give hard-to-decarbonise industries the opportunity to zero carbon technologies in line with the Government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.

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Professor Paul Halloran - project leader - said: “"We are really excited to have the opportunity to test this technology in the real world, and be part of the solution to one of the biggest challenges facing our planet,

"The demonstration plant, which should begin operating in 2024, will process 3,000 litres of seawater per minute, removing an estimated 100 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

"The aim is to find out what barriers there might be to scaling this up, ultimately to a similar magnitude to current global carbon emissions.”

Professor Halloran admitted there was “a lot of work to do” before mass scaling up could be achieved but hoped the pilot project could be a pathway forward.