UK: The last thing we need is coal-fired power

In the next month, a decision will land on Gordon Brown’s desk that will tell us how seriously he takes the greatest crisis facing us all
The energy company E.on has applied to build Britain’s first new coal-powered fire station in 33 years. The decision is currently sitting with the Tory-dominated local council in Kent, but it will shortly be bumped up to the Department for Business and Regulatory Affairs in Whitehall. Like a piping hot piece of coal, it will be quickly handed on with a nervous wince to Number 10 Downing Street.

Behind this application, there are at least three others in the pipeline, waiting nervously to see what Brown decides.

Coal is the one of the dirtiest technologies known to man. If the E.on plan goes ahead, the emissions from this one plant alone will be greater than the those of the 24 least-polluting countries combined. It produces 80 per cent more climate-destabilising gases than natural gas, and 30 per cent more than even burning up oil.

So why its British come-back tour now? Our energy supplies are looking more precarious than ever, with chaos in the oil-rich Middle East, an ever-more-assertive Russia controlling the gas taps, and dwindling supplies in the North Sea. Any British government needs to put in place ways to keep the lights on