Can coal power make a clean break?

Apr 9 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal

Plans are in the pipeline to build a £2bn power station in Northumberland as part of a new ‘green’ generation of coal-fired electricity plants. But environmental groups say Government approval for the proposed clean-coal plans around the UK, including the one on the site of the old Blyth Power Station, would lock Britain into huge carbon emissions for decades. Dave Black reports.

FOR years now it has been touted as the way forward in the polarised debate between supporters of a future for Britain’s mining industry and those who say continuing to produce energy from coal is a one-way street to environmental ruin.

The concept of clean coal technology is seen by its supporters as the silver bullet solution to fears about global warming and climate change posed by plans for a new generation of coal-fired power plants in the UK.

They say the new generating stations will be made significantly cleaner and more efficient than existing plants through the use of state-of-the-art equipment to reduce harmful emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. In addition, the much-vaunted technique of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) offers the prospect of damaging CO2 gas being stripped out during the coal burning process and dumped underground or beneath the seabed, out of harm’s way.

Clean coal technology is being put forward by energy giant RWE npower as the justification for its bid to build a £2bn coal-fired plant in Cambois, Northumberland, where the now-demolished Blyth Power Station once stood. npower says the new plant would be 22% cleaner than its predecessor, as well as being ‘carbon capture ready’, in other words capable of being retro-fitted with the new technology if it is proved effective and viable at some point in the future.

But some sceptics are claiming CCS is another ‘great green scam’ promoted by an industry desperately trying to remain a player in a carbon-constrained world.

Critics argue that on the current timescale for assessing and introducing it, CCS technology – if it is ever deployed at all – will come too late to prevent runaway climate change and the wrecking of Britain’s commitment to tackling it.

Scientists at the Royal Society recently wrote to Business and Enterprise Secretary John Hutton claiming that plans for a new generation of coal-fired power plants pose an unacceptable climate risk unless greater efforts are made to trap and store the carbon pollution they produce. The Royal Society argues that the Government must do more to encourage the energy industry to speed up the development of CCS technology, and work more closely with other European countries.

Meanwhile, some leading environmental commentators claim CCS technology won’t be able to play any significant role for decades, if it ever does. Greenpeace says: “The construction of capture-ready power plants places hope in an end-of-pipe solution that may or may not be realised in time to effectively remove CO2 emissions from the power sector.”

Wansbeck MP Denis Murphy has given his support to RWE npower’s plans for a new coal-fired plant at Cambois, but has insisted it must be ‘ultra clean’. Yesterday he said: “I understand the concerns of the Royal Society and others, however, it is inevitable that we as a nation are going to continue to burn coal in large quantities for another 30 to 50 years.

“It is important that we invest in a new generation of coal-fired power stations, and accelerate the programme, but they must be carbon capture-ready. Plants like the one proposed at Cambois will be very clean in their coal burn, but it is the CO2 that is the problem.

“In terms of CCS technology, it will need Government intervention because it is not something the market will pick up on. It has a substantial cost implication but, if we want to have energy security, it is a price we are going to have to pay.”