The Wave and Quit Dirty Coal

James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climate experts has warned that “coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on the planet”. (1) The organisers of The Wave, the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition have a policy on dirty coal (2) which includes a call on Government to “withhold permission to build new coal fired power stations that cannot capture their carbon emissions, such as Kingsnorth”. So tonight’s news, that power company E.ON have shelved their plans to build a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth (3) is a small victory in the campaign against dirty coal.

Per capita the UK produces more CO2 emissions from fossil fuels than any other nation.(1) During the winter the UK produces around 55,000 MW of electricity (4) to satisfy peak demand, of which half (28,000 MW) is provided by the UK’s 18 coal fired power stations. (5) E.ON operate 3 of the 18, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Ironbridge and the existing Kingsnorth power station, between them producing 5,000 MW (9 percent of UK electricity) from dirty coal. (5)

And that’s why Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, E.ON UK Headquarters and the 2,000 MW coal fired power station at Didoct A, Oxfordshire remain on our cycle tour of climate crime scenes from Manchester Airport to London for The Wave.

(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/james-hansen-power-plants-coal

(2) http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/policy/quit-dirty-coal
(3) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/07/eon-cancels-kingsnorth-power-station
(4) http://www.e-day.org.uk/national.aspx
(5) http://www.ukqaa.org.uk/PowerStation.html