Clean coal push marks reversal of UK energy policy

No new coal-fired power stations will be built in Britain from now on unless they capture and bury at least 25% of greenhouse gases immediately and 100% by 2025, the climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, announced today.

In a reversal of energy policy which represents a major victory for the new Department for Energy and Climate Change and green pressure groups, the government will direct the building of four energy “clusters”, generating a total of 2.5GW of electricity, on the east coast of Britain.
Each cluster will have at least one major new coal-fired power station able to collect carbon emissions and transport them out to sea, where they will be buried in redundant oil or gas fields.

The new power stations, the first to be built in over 30 years, are not expected to come onstream until 2015. They will be sited in the Thames Gateway, on the rivers Humber and Tees and in the Firth of Forth in Scotland, with a possible fifth on Merseyside. The government envisages oil and coal companies linking to reduce emissions from coal-powered electricity generation by up to 60% by 2025.

Demanding carbon capture and storage (CCS) on all new coal plants is expected to cost around