Britain to Invest in New Coal Plants
April 20th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
The United Kingdom will release this week plans for building new coal plants:
Mounting fears within government circles that Britain’s utilities are poised for a new dash for gas – increasing the country’s future power dependence on fuel imports from Russia – has persuaded Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, to back funding for a second clean coal demonstration power plant.
In an attempt to ensure that coal remains part of the UK energy mix, he will also set out licensing conditions for more coal power stations.
Mr Miliband’s renewed pitch for clean coal, which could be timed to coincide with the Budget on Wednesday, is to be pushed out quickly to counter scepticism in the power industry that the Government has a viable strategy to promote carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
Meantime, the UK government also plans ambitious emissions cuts over the next decade:
The Budget statement on 22 April will contain budgets for CO2 emission cuts alongside projections for tax and spending.
The carbon budgets will run for five-year periods up to 2022 when the UK should have cut emissions by between 34% and 42%.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:59 am
The UK leads the world in the announcement of belief in climate catastrophe. It also leads the world in the adoption of draconian targets for carbon reduction. And finally, it leads the world in its determination not to achieve those targets. As the Independent said the other day:
“He [Brown] has repeatedly promised that Britain will increase the proportion of its energy coming from renewable sources to 15 per cent by 2020. But a new study to be published on Tuesday by Cambridge Econometrics is expected to show that, if current policies continue, it will grow from 1 per cent to only 1.5 per cent by then.”
The present government is building roads, adding airport capacity, slowing down or eliminating grants for home insulation. Their latest measure is to subsidize the purchase of new cars!
As George Monbiot penetratingly said recently, what the electorate seems to want is for their governments to announce aggressive climate targets, and then miss them. Well, we are doing that all right.
At some point you have to ask whether anyone really believes this stuff. They sure are not acting as if they do.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
[...] Cross-posted from Prometheus: The Science Policy Blog [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 1:20 pm
[...] Britain to Invest in New Coal Plants Cross-posted from Prometheus: The Science Policy Blog [...]