Clean coal is future for energy supplies
Greenhouse gas emissions from new power stations will be collected and permanently stored deep underground
PA
The new policy takes much of the heat out of what for two years has been the thorniest environmental problem in British politics: whether or not to let a new generation of coal-fired power stations go ahead
Any new coal-fired power stations built in Britain will have to be fitted with cutting-edge technology to capture their carbon emissions, the Government announced yesterday in a revolution in energy policy.
The announcement, by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, outlined the first practical programme in the world to deploy carbon capture and storage, or CCS – the technological "fix" on which the world's chances of fighting climate change may come to depend.
CCS, which takes power stations' carbon dioxide waste gas, liquefies it and stores it permanently deep underground, instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere where it helps drive global warming, would henceforth be a requisite for any new British coal-fired power plant, Mr Miliband said.
As the technology is in its infancy and still unproven, new generating stations would have to be built from scratch with demonstration plants attempting to capture emissions from about 300 megawatts of capacity, or about a quarter of a typical big plant's output. But after 2020, as long as the technology had been proven, CCS would have to be retro-fitted to all new stations to cover the whole of their emissions, Mr Miliband said.
It is likely that four new coal-fired plants, accompanied by CCS facilities, will be built in Britain, as the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced in his Budget on Wednesday that government funding for "up to four" CCS demonstration plants would be made available. Their enormous cost (probably well over £1bn each) will be met by a levy on electricity prices, which by 2020 will add about 2 per cent to the average household electricity bill.
The new power stations are likely to be built on east coast estuaries such as the Thames, the Humber, the Tees and the Firth of Forth, where access is easiest to the future permanent storage areas for their CO2 – depleted oil and gas fields deep under the bed of the North Sea. Norwegian operations have already shown that waste gases can be pumped down into such geological formations and safely stored.
Yesterday's announcement was generally given a cautious welcome by environmentalists.
"At last Ed Miliband is demonstrating welcome signs of climate leadership in the face of resistance from Whitehall officials and cabinet colleagues," said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace. "He is the first minister in 12 years to throw down the gauntlet to the energy companies and demand they start taking climate change seriously."
However, Mr Sauven warned that for every tonne of carbon captured and buried from new coal plants before the 2020s, the Government was allowing three tonnes to be released into the atmosphere.
At a stroke, the new policy takes much of the heat out of what for two years has been the thorniest environmental problem in British politics: whether or not to let a new generation of coal-fired power stations go ahead, led by the massive plant proposed by the German-owned electricity giant E.ON for Kingsnorth in Kent.
Green campaigners feared that the Government was at one stage close to sanctioning Kingsnorth (and thus other coal-fired plants which would follow) without regard to abating the huge volumes of CO2 which would consequently be emitted. The site of the plant became the focus of widespread environmental protests.
But allowing Kingsnorth to go ahead with its emissions "unabated" is now off the agenda, and the plant will only be built if E.ON wins the design competition for the first CCS demonstration plant, in which it is involved with two other utilities – which will not be for at least 18 months.
"The era of new unabated coal has come to an end," Mr Miliband said yesterday, claiming that the Government's plan was "the most environmentally ambitious of any country in the world, and puts us in a world leadership position on CCS and coal".
He said: "There is no alternative to CCS if we are serious about fighting climate change and retaining a diverse mix of energy sources for our economy."
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Comments
There is not just a lack of solid evidence to support the connection between human-caused carbon emissions and global climate change, there is a complete lack of such evidence. Man-made global warming has no stronger or more dependable foundation for its belief system than any other religion, past or present.
All religions start out as sciences, out to better contemporary religions, and climatology is no different. So "it's an ology". That doesn't make its science any more dependable than that behind astrology.
Come on, guys, please?
What rot!!! Suely nobody with a brain is going to get sucked in by this nonsense. There is no such thing as clean coal, and permanent storage of CO2 underground is a physical and chemical impossibility. That's if anyone could ever afford the vast amount of steelwork and pumping equipment needed to even attempt it. We might also ask where the coal is going to come from, given that peak anthracite was in the 1990s and EROEI for coal is falling dramatically.
It is always worth remembering that this rubbish is brought to us by the same people who said quite recently: "The UK economy has never been stronger', 'Iraq has weapons of mass destruction it can launch at 45 minutes notice', 'eating contaminated beef is perfectly safe '...... ad infinitum.
What is really interesting is, the worse the predicament gets, the more stupid the so-called solutions.
This is just seat-of-the-pants adlibbing by nulab in a last-ditch attempt to con a few more voters in the face of certain defeat in 2010.
Since the CO2 hype started, all real pollutants seem to not matter anymore.
There is a great deal of evidence supporting carbon dioxide levels increasing in the atmosphere and global warming. Methane and carbon dioxide levels can be shown to have increased from about 8,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture and an increase starting again with the beginning of the Industrial revolution. Think about it for a few seconds, all the carbon locked up in trees during the carboniferous era and sealed away from the atmosphere for over 100 million years. Man digs it up and burns it and returns it to the atmosphere. It is obvious. An enormous amount of evidence shows increasing levels of CO2. Religions do not start as sciences.
An entirely different question is the clean fuel debate. If the UK stopped emmiting CO2 completely it would take China 9 months to take up the slack. You can assume that CO2 levels will rise for the foreseable future and your grandchildren will live in a world with higher CO2 levels. The exact effect of this we do not know but it will probably involve climate change in various regions of the world and higher sea levels. How much we are not sure BUT your opinion flies in the face of facts
As for China, green energy investments are part of its recovery package, which unlike the UK's insane bank bailouts, is already working. The slowdown there is already over and massive green projects are underway. China will become one of the world leaders of green energy and energy conservation.
However I am left uneasy about the overall direction of this policy. Now is a great opportunity to invest not in clean coal but in micro generation. How difficult would it be to get every new built house, every new factory to be built with the environment at its core. The technology for micro generation is far closer to fruition than clean coal, it would also insure British households and British industy immune from the vagaries of international fuel prices.
Currently wind and solar power would struggle to run a household or a business 24/7 but it is getting closer, coupled with building using more efficient materials and machines and we would be a lot closer to a carbon free environment than clean coal offers us.
The advantages of micro generation are plentiful, it could eradicate fuel poverty, for both individuals and industry, it would put Britain in control of the one item that seems to drive inflation more than any other, fuel costs, remember when inflation was at 5% largely on the back of rising fuel prices worldwide.
Carbon capture has a place but this perfect storm of this recession and the climate crisis gives us a real opportunity to reshape the economy and our society along fairer grounds whilst giving our empty factories plenty to do.
According to Greenpeace, E.on told the-then Business Secretary John Hutton that no way were they including CCS in their plans for Kingsnorth:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/clima
This is what happens when energy supplies are (a) privatised, and (b) sold into foreign ownership.
It's all about profit. As for CO2 emissions, WTF? Who cares!
Stop filing this under 'Green Living'. Even if Clean Coal worked it would by definition NOT be green-living. Do you think the people shoveling that coal out of the mines experience 'Green Living'?
This documentary doesn't go far enough, but gives some background for those interested in reality.
Can Coal be Earth-Friendly?
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/515/in
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/00