Plans for new coal plants under fire

Protesters are to launch one of the hardest-hitting environmental campaigns for more than a decade over plans to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the UK.

Senior scientists, City investors, international leaders and MPs from all parties have joined environmental groups in condemning plans to approve coal plants before there are guarantees that they will be fitted with equipment to stop the release of harmful greenhouse gases.


Supporters of new coal power say Britain desperately needs to fill a looming energy gap and improve security of power supply. But objectors claim it is impossible to build coal stations – the most polluting of all power plants – and still cut pollution.

Without a new technology to control carbon emissions, known as ‘carbon capture and storage’, the eight plants being planned would account for the entire carbon target that the UK has set itself for the middle of this century, say campaigners. As a result, opposition to construction of new plants has hardened recently with new names joining the growing coalition of opposition every week. Activists’ plans are aimed at the government and at Eon, the German-owned company proposing to build the first of the new plants at Kingsnorth in Kent, said Matt Phillips of the European Climate Foundation.

Guardian