UK: Energy experts call for CCS for gas fired power stations

New gas plants should be subject to the same rules that force new coal plants to fit carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, according to leading energy bosses.

Experts fear that the government’s new policy on CCS for coal power will lead to a boom in the construction of gas plants which do not have to bury their carbon emissions.
Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF Energy, said there was no point forcing only new coal plants to fit the expensive and largely untried technology. “We have to have a consistent rule applying to everyone. If you want to decarbonise electricity we need to do it [fit CCS to gas plants].’

Joan MacNaughton, senior vice-president at Alstom, the power generation firm, formerly one of the government’s most senior energy advisers, said that CCS should be fitted to new gas plants soon. “We can’t do everything at once,” she said. “That means fitting CCS technology to new coal plants is the priority as they produce more emissions. But we do have to do new gas plants pretty soon. Building more ‘unabated’ fossil fuel plants for years to come would just mean we have a much bigger problem to tackle later on.”

Guardian