Fiona Hall MEP backs campaign to stop Cambois power station

Jul 9 2009 by Amy Hunt, The Journal

GREEN campaigners protesting against plans for a coal-fired power station are celebrating winning political support.

Liberal Democrat MEP Fiona Hall has backed a campaign by PANiC Stations (People Against New Coal Stations) against a proposed plant at Cambois, Northumberland.

The North East Euro MP said the power station plans “fly in the face of reason”.

RWE npower is planning a £2bn clean-coal power station at Cambois, on the site where the old Blyth Power Station used to stand.

The new development would bring 3,000 construction and 200 permanent jobs, bosses at RWE npower claim.

In April Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said all new power stations built would have to have measures to cut their carbon emissions and at least a portion of each one must be fitted with carbon capture and storage (CSS). This is the method of trapping the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide produced by burning coal and storing it underground.

But campaigners say this technology is nowhere near being sufficiently well-developed to mitigate the harmful effects of burning coal.

Last night Ms Hall agreed, saying: “The idea of starting with small-scale pilot plants for CCS is a sound one. But it is vital that the pilots are designed to capture all the CO2 being emitted - otherwise we will be trialling a system which is only marginally better than the non-abated coal powered plants that exist at present.

“With climate change happening faster than anyone predicted, the fact is that coal-fired stations without 100% CCS are killers.”

Dr David Golding CBE, who heads up the campaign against climate change in the North East, said: “We are most grateful for the support of all three of our recently re-elected MEPs.

“We seek changes to the Government’s proposals for new coal-fired power stations and associated demonstration units for CCS, as announced by Ed Miliband with a view to minimising the UK’s future carbon emissions.

“The matter is of the utmost importance since coal is the most damaging to the climate of all fuels and because of the need to cut CO2 as much as possible. “We make no criticism of CCS as such. On the contrary, we would warmly welcome appropriate efforts to develop this technology.

“What we are saying is, by all means press ahead with CCS demonstration plants, but wait until the process is proven before embarking on large scale new coal build.

“In other words, we are totally opposed to the construction of death factories with fig leaves - new, full-sized, coal-fired power stations, trying vainly to hide behind fig leaf-sized CCS units. The weasel words, ‘Clean Coal’, are routinely applied to such systems, but they are anything but clean. They would start belching out their carbon, tens of millions of tons of it every year, at the very time (around 2015) when global emissions need to begin to decline.”