The Revival of the Coal Industry
If anyone is wondering why E.On seems likely to get the go ahead for the new coal fired power plant in Kent, they would do well to look to activities around Merthyr Tydfil. A new open-cast coal mine is being dug out of the ground and appears to herald the revival of the UK coal industry. And its all being kept very quiet. George Monbiot has the details.
E.On’s justification is that they will be able to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to keep the emissions within limits. Which sounds great until you discover that CCS is still in its embryonic phase and no-one knows if it will ever become a practical solution.
Greenpeace point out that “plenty of ready-to-go solutions do exist: energy efficiency, combined heat and power, wind, wave, tidal and solar power, for example. All that’s lacking is the political will to implement them – and investing money, time and political will in CCS, like that other false solution, is only going to undermine the real solutions we already have.”
Wind power, anyone? Well, apparently that may be a little tricky to achieve. Times Online, looking at John Hutton’S desire to see 7,000 wind turbines built off our coastline by 2020, says that this equates to building two a day, starting right now. “It’s crazy,” says Sue Ion, from the Royal Academy of Engineering. “Building wind turbines in a difficult marine environment is not an easy job. This is a serious engineering challenge that hasn’t been thought through properly.”
So, until they work out that bringing down the price of solar panels and helping everyone to fit them on our rooves might just have a cumulative effect – all we can do is keep hitting the off switch.