Cool-off for coal

Halt plans for ‘unclean’ coal power stations, say reports

With no fewer than six current projects proposing to build new coal-fired power stations in the UK, it would be a bad mistake to approve any of them now, says Matthew Lockwood of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). To do so would set the government back in its carbon reduction and renewable energy targets, as well as striking “a serious blow to UK credibility”.

Instead, he proposes an “EU-wide moratorium on investment in new coal-fired power stations…lasting at least until mid-2010”. As he argues in the new ippr report After the Coal Rush, such projects may only appear viable because carbon prices are so low. That, in turn, is because the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) lacks credibility, amid uncertainty surrounding proposals to tighten the scheme in its third stage of trading (post-2012). Lockwood’s report regards €40 per tonne as the minimum consistent with achieving the EU’s 2020 emissions reduction target. Until the ETS reflects this, coal will remain on the table – even without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.   

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) sees things rather differently. As a spokesperson told Green Futures: “The government does not believe there is a need to ban new coal build in order to meet our emissions targets.” This stance was effectively reiterated by energy minister Malcolm Wicks when the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee came out with its own report, advising that coal fired power stations should only be considered if they are fitted with CCS technology from the outset. E.ON’s controversial plans to build new coal power at Kingsnorth in Kent which would be “carbon capture ready” – i.e. prepared to retrofit CCS capability at a later date – do not meet this condition.

BERR does claim, however, to be on course with plans to get the UK’s first commercial scale CCS facility opened by 2014.  It recently published a short-list of four companies (including E.ON) contending for government funding for a demonstration project, and launched a consultation on the legislative framework to govern this technology. Lockwood agrees that CCS is pivotal, adding: “We also have everything set in place for the UK to take a lead in that field – the plants, the engineering talent, the storage sites and the political capital too – there's a big 'win-win' there to be seized."  – Jon Wallace

After the Coal Rush: Assessing policy options for coal-fired electricity generation is available to download from: www.ippr.org
 
Carbon Capture and Storage, a report by the Environmental Audit Committee, is available to download from: www.publications.parliament.uk

BERR’s consultation document, Towards Carbon Capture and Storage, is available at: www.berr.gov.uk/consultations

Click here to see how new coal-fired power stations are meeting legal barriers in the US.
 

29 July 2008

Jon Wallace