Update from Kingsnorth

Posted by bex — 8 October 2007 at 12:48pm - Comments

The view from Kingsnorth

See all Kingsnorth updates.

I've just spoken to Jamie, our intrepid webbie inside Kingsnorth power plant, which we shut down in the early hours of this morning.

While the team scaling the chimney just keeps on climbing (several hours and counting), the team down at the conveyor belt are coal-covered but comfortable - even finding time to wind down after a pre-dawn start this morning.

The police have arrived, assessed the situation and put up a cordon around the plant, and there's some speculation that they may bring cutting equipment soon. We'll see - it's a waiting game now for the conveyor belt team now.

We also have three teams out leafletting in the towns around Kingsnorth (near Rochester in Kent) to explain why we've closed down the power station. In short:

  • Energy giant E.ON wants to build the UK's first new coal plant in 30 years on the site in Kingsnorth. The new plant would emit as much C02 as the world's 24 lowest emitting countries combined - and would potentially keep doing so for 50 years.

  • Brown's repeatedly been asked to veto the plans; he's refused. In fact, his government has convened a coal forum to "bring forward ways of strengthening the industry, and working to ensure that the UK has the right framework to secure the long-term future of coal-fired generation."

  • We don't need more outdated, inefficient coal fired power plants. We need an energy system that can meet the demands of the 21st century: renewables, energy efficiency and combined heat and power (CHP) on an unprecedented scale: decentralised energy.

 

Keep an eye on the blog for updates as events unfold - as well as Facebook, Moblog, Flickr and Twitter. And, if you can only do one thing, please help us get the message out to Gordon Brown: no new coal for the UK.

Article tagged as: climate change, coal, direct actions, energy, kingsnorth
Comments Commenting is now closed

There's no such thing as "clean coal". (A point of interest: our Dutch office recently won a complaint against Dutch energy giant NUON for using terms like "clean coal" and "clean fuel" in its advertising. The Dutch Advertising Authority ruled that NUON was misleading the Dutch public through their use of the terms.)

Desulphurisation is related to acid rain, not climate change, so I think you're referring to E.ON's possible use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and combined heat and power (CHP)?

As far as CHP goes, all E.ON have done is announce that they're launching a feasibility study into CHP (something they should have done long before now as a matter of course). There's absolutely no guarantee they'll use it. Even if they did, the emissions from a CHP plant run purely on coal would be way too high to be considered in any way clean. I've laid our our position here, quite lengthily.

On CCS, the danger is it becomes a justification for building cheap, inefficient, poorly constructed power stations that use the most carbon intensive methods of energy generation (like coal), which will undermine efficiency, renewables and combined heat and power - all of which are available now, and all of which can do huge amounts to reduce our emissions.

Eon's language on this is pure greenwash: "E.ON UK is developing plans that could open a new chapter for UK coal generation, using state-of-the-art technologies that will see coal burned more cleanly than ever before in the UK..."

It's true that the new "super-critical" plants will be marginally more efficient than our existing coal fired power plants, but then they were built over three decades ago. If you compare the proposed plants to modern, genuinely efficient plants like those in Denmark, the results are scandalous. The new "super-critical" units will only be about 45 per cent efficient. Power plants in Denmark - by using combined heat and power (CHP) - are achieving up to 95 per cent efficiency.

Cheers,

Bex
gpuk
PS Yep, we're working on aviation too..

By bex - 8 October 2007 at 2:18pm

There's no such thing as "clean coal". (A point of interest: our Dutch office recently won a complaint against Dutch energy giant NUON for using terms like "clean coal" and "clean fuel" in its advertising. The Dutch Advertising Authority ruled that NUON was misleading the Dutch public through their use of the terms.) Desulphurisation is related to acid rain, not climate change, so I think you're referring to E.ON's possible use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and combined heat and power (CHP)? As far as CHP goes, all E.ON have done is announce that they're launching a feasibility study into CHP (something they should have done long before now as a matter of course). There's absolutely no guarantee they'll use it. Even if they did, the emissions from a CHP plant run purely on coal would be way too high to be considered in any way clean. I've laid our our position here, quite lengthily. On CCS, the danger is it becomes a justification for building cheap, inefficient, poorly constructed power stations that use the most carbon intensive methods of energy generation (like coal), which will undermine efficiency, renewables and combined heat and power - all of which are available now, and all of which can do huge amounts to reduce our emissions. Eon's language on this is pure greenwash: "E.ON UK is developing plans that could open a new chapter for UK coal generation, using state-of-the-art technologies that will see coal burned more cleanly than ever before in the UK..." It's true that the new "super-critical" plants will be marginally more efficient than our existing coal fired power plants, but then they were built over three decades ago. If you compare the proposed plants to modern, genuinely efficient plants like those in Denmark, the results are scandalous. The new "super-critical" units will only be about 45 per cent efficient. Power plants in Denmark - by using combined heat and power (CHP) - are achieving up to 95 per cent efficiency. Cheers, Bex gpuk PS Yep, we're working on aviation too..

By bex - 8 October 2007 at 2:18pm

Comments

Follow Greenpeace UK