Coal

Kingsnorth, Kent: planned site of the first new UK coal plant for 30 years

Video: Why we need to say "NO" to new coal fired power stations in the UK - A personal message from Africa

Coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels. Being nearly pure carbon, it releases nearly pure carbon dioxide when burned. In the sector that changes our climate the most, coal is the worst offender.

While the world around us is thrown into crisis by global warming, coal-fuelled power stations are pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ever before. New Labour has effectively subsidised coal, making the most polluting source of energy cheaper to burn than the less polluting natural gas. The use of coal in power stations has risen by 10 per cent under New Labour, and CO2 emissions in the UK are higher than ever before - and still rising.

Over two thirds of the coal burnt in the UK is imported. Most of this imported coal comes from Russia, Australia and South Africa, meaning that not only does burning coal in the UK cause climate change, but the emissions generated by transporting millions of tonnes of coal across the world worsen the problem...

"The single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal. Coal-fired generation is historically responsible for most of the CO2 in the air today - responsible for about half of all carbon dioxide emissions globally"
Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, letter to Gordon Brown, 2007

That these fossil fuelled dinosaurs have been allowed to keep pumping out climate changing gases is testament to Gordon Brown's failure on climate change. But it gets worse. Two thirds of the energy going into a coal-fired power station never even makes it to our homes. It's lost - up the cooling towers and along the transmission lines - as waste heat before we even turn the kettle on.

In the UK's archaic, centralised power stations, no attempt is made to capture and use the waste heat as part of a decentralised energy system that can more than double the efficiency of our power stations. In countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, around half of their energy is generated in this super efficient way, so there really is no excuse for the UK not to do the same.

And now, because coal is cheaper to burn than natural gas, a number of energy companies are planning to build brand new centralised coal fired power stations, which could still be pumping out carbon dioxide in 50 years time - killing our chances of stopping catastrophic climate change. The world's most respected climate scientist, Jim Hansen from NASA, is so concerned about these plans that last year he took the unprecedented step of writing to the Prime Minister to say he had "the future of the world in his hands."

The first of these proposed plants, at Kingsnorth in Kent, is planned to start production by 2012, and will quickly be followed by at least seven others. None will have the capacity to capture and store the CO2 released when coal is burned - so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is still in its infancy and may not be ready for years, if at all. As a result, emissions from just the first three of these proposed new coal plants would be around the same amount as ALL of the projected emission savings of an entire new nuclear programme.

This just goes to show how badly the government is lacking a coherent approach to tackling energy security and climate change. But there is a solution - visit our new virtual climate-friendly city to see how renewables, decentralised energy and energy efficiency can work together to meet Britain's 21st Century energy needs.

The case against coal - frequently asked questions

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