A Norfolk sugar factory has applied to build a new 'green' sugar beet drier.
British Sugar hopes to build the extension to its plant at Wissington, near Downham Market.
It says the 25 x 15m building, which would be 20m tall, would allow steam produced elsewhere on the site to be used to dry leftover beet pulp to make animal feed.
The same process is currently carried out using gas burners to heat the beet.
British Sugar says using steam would save 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
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The factory employs 160 people and is the largest of its kind in the UK. It processes 3m tonnes of beet, grown across Norfolk and parts of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, during each winter's campaign.
It also produces products including white sugar, animal feeds, bioethanol, betaine, electricity and topsoil.
Smaller similar plants operate at Cantley, near Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and Newark, in Nottinghamshire.
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