Green activists jubilant as Kingsnorth shelved
E.on says coal plant is no longer needed as recession reduces electricity demand
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Kingsnorth Power Station, which has for three years been the battleground between environmental pressure groups and the British energy industry, will not get its controversial new coal power plant.
Kingsnorth's owner, the German energy company E.on, said it was kicking the proposed station into the long grass, blaming falling demand for electricity because of the recession. It said the new plant was not needed in the UK until around 2016.
The decision to shelve the proposal came almost two years to the day that six Greenpeace climate change protesters staged a high-profile, high-up protest, climbing Kingsnorth's 200-metre smokestack to protest against the carbon emissions. They were accused of causing £30,000 of damage, but the subsequent landmark court case saw the six acquitted after the jury accepted that the plant, at Medway, in Kent, might pose a greater threat than the activities of the activists.
The new coal plant's indefinite delay will be seen as a blow to the Government's energy strategy, which remains heavily reliant on coal power. E.on's announcement may also prove embarrassing for the Conservatives' shadow Energy and Climate Secretary Greg Clark, who, The Independent has learnt, yesterday told colleagues that the lights could go out because of an electricity shortfall.
The Government originally argued that potential environmental issues could be resolved through the fitting of Carbon Capture and Storage technology to new coal-fired power plants. Last April the Government decreed that no new coal-fired power station would be allowed unless it captured the carbon from 400 megawatts straightaway.
But for Kingsnorth, which would pump out 6 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year, this would represent one-quarter of its output.
In July this year, hundreds of protesters from groups including Oxfam, the Women's Institute, Greenpeace and the RSPB formed a human chain around parts of the plant.
E.on described the decision as a postponement, but green groups last night believed that the announcement signalled an end to the whole project. "This development is extremely good news for the climate and in a stroke significantly reduces the chances of an unabated Kingsnorth plant ever being built," said Greenpeace's executive director, John Sauven. "The huge diverse coalition of people who have campaigned against Kingsnorth because of the threat it posed to the climate should take heart that emissions from new coal are now even less likely in Britain."
He added: "Ed Miliband [the Environment Secretary] now has a golden opportunity to rule out all emissions from new coal as a sign of Britain's leadership before the key Copenhagen climate meeting."
A spokesperson for E.on last night said: "We expect to defer an investment decision on the Kingsnorth proposals for up to two to three years. As a Group, we remain committed to the development of cleaner coal and carbon capture and storage, which we believe have a key role to play alongside renewables, gas and nuclear, in tackling climate change while ensuring affordability and security of energy supplies."
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Comments
How convenient!
But what about the 'recovery'? Or has that been postponed to around 2016 also?
The whole idea of more coal burning was flawed from the beginning. And there is no such thing as 'carbon capture', other than that done by plants and algae.
Every day that passes we get further confirmation that mainstream culture is insane.
China is developing coal-power not just to reduce its oil dependency (15% from Iran), but also to fuel exports and keep production costs low, which financially benefits every buyer of consumer goods like all Apple products (including iPhones), all games consoles, and so on. So I would like to invite every Green activist reading this article to do a country of origin audit of the consumer goods they've bought over the last year, and I'll publish the data on my site at madeinnations.com (you can use the Contact Us link). After all, you can't on the one hand applaud a decision to defer a new coal-fired power station in the UK, while on the other turn a blind eye to how the factories that assembled your iPhone, Kindle, PS3, Olympus DSLR etc were powered, surely?
The science of clean coal and carbon capture is completely flawed.
Now we need the rest of the people to stop burying their heads in the sand and realise that wind turbines, geothermic, water, wave, solar and photovoltaic energy, the natural way is the way to go.
It will happen one way or the other, so sooner rather than later would be good, but I fear peoples ignorance is going to yet again slow the urgent process down.
Environmentalist, Ecologist and green activists need to keep the pressure on otherwise our children and their children will have nothing left!
Geothermal: currently only work on the edges of tectonic plates, so until it can be built elsewhere it is impossible to built in the UK.
Water: needs a waterfall / dam / or fast flowing river, all of which are uncommon in the UK, so it only has a limited capacity to generate electricity.
Waves: difficult to get reliable energy amounts as the size of the waves fluctates so much.
Solar / photovoltaic: produce very little electricity and only works when sunny.
Perhaps environmentalists should stop burying their heads in the sand and accept the 'natural' way of generating energy doesn't work.
I'm an advocate or microscale electricity generation feeding into the system, in escence turning everybodies houses into mini power plants with solar panels etc. then using a few smaller power plants to fill in the gaps.
For your other comment the power companies are producing record profits at the moment suggesting that building another power plant would not reduce the general cost of electricity.
It seems that the UK always has a lack or foresight , why do we not a line of wind generators along Motorway hard shoulders a la Belguim, or investment in wave power.
Why have successive Conservative and Labour administrative just washed there hands of progessive development and expected the power companies to sort themselves.
You might be interested in www.withouthotair.com by Professor Peter Mackay which explains the fallacy that we can rely on the Renewables that you have quoted. It is not written in jargon and the Physics can be understood by the intelligent layman.
Everyone goes on about renewables which are meant to help save the planet yet the environment we are trying to save will be covered in wind turbines... what a fantastic solution.
We don't need more power stations, we need to reduce our power consumption.
Remember, all the proposals for power production be it green technology, coal or nuclear have nothing to do with cutting energy costs to the consumer or energy security or saving the planet. Every single group is in it for themselves to make money. Green energy companies are desparate for the government to fund green technology, the nuclear industry is desparate for money and companies like Eon (French I belive) will only build a power station here if they can make lots of cash.
And you think all this will cut costs... you are mistaken. While we continue to push for privatisation of all industries, costs will increase.
You only have to look at the supermarkets... they are constantly almost giving stuff away... they sell insurance, mobile phones, cars, just about everything yet why is it that the average shoping bill continues to rise? It may have someting to do with the profits which these businesses have been making which strangely correlate to price increases. Meanwhile the poor farmer has to rely on subsidies or we just import from elsewhere... how does that help our economy? We need money coming in, not out... lets stop the imports and encourage UK production and highly skilled jobs rather than becoming the warehouse of Europe where the only skills we have are stacking shelves.
Be it supermarkets, power companies, banks, trains, post office, and forced EU laws which meant the market 'had to open up to competition' in order to 'create competition and drive down prices while improving quality', the exact oppostite has happened, poor service, higher prices and bigger profits.
If this policy of big business, increased population and a complete disrespect for the environment continues, the world will go on... but the environment will soon become inhospitable to humans be it due to a lack of food, fresh water, power.
As for China... they may get the economical boom because of their coal resources and abilty to build a new power station every two weeks but they will pay in the end.. its just a mater of time.
Meanwhile, I boycot whereever possible any products which have to be shipped around the world but its difficult when our own manufacturing base is so bad that its hard to find anything made in England these days.
It seems the whole world and its people have gone completely bonkers... all because of financial greed.