Government launches consultation on clean coal

The Government’s consultation document, ‘A Framework For The Development Of Clean Coal’, was launched alongside new research by AEA Group suggesting that clean coal technology could bring between £2 billion and £4 billion a year into the UK economy by 2030 and support between 30,000 and 60,000 jobs.

The Government’s launch came on the same day that energy company E.ON announced a deal with two leading engineering firms that will support its bid for a large-scale CSS demonstration project at its proposed new coal units at Kingsnorth in Kent.

Under the Government’s proposals, which Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband described today as “the most environmentally ambitious of any country in the world”, new power stations will only be given the greenlight if they demonstrate CCS on at least 300 megawatts (MW) net of capacity from day one and store 20 million tonnes of CO2 over 10 to 15 years.

Once the technology is proved – hopefully by 2020 – these power stations would, under the Government’s proposals, be required to retrofit CSS on their total capacity within five years.

In the event of CSS taking longer than expected to prove its worth, the consultation document says further measures may be needed to ensure emissions from coal are substantially reduced. These might include an annual cap on individual power stations’ emissions or a limit on its running hours.

The consultation document recognises that CCS demonstration will only happen with the aid of Government funding. For example, it says that alongside the Government’s ongoing competition to build a post-combustion demonstration, up to three further projects including pre-combustion technology could be supported.

While welcoming the initiative in general, Dr Neil Bentley, director of business environment at the Confederation of British Industry, expressed concern about the speed at which the Government is moving on this issue. “It is disappointing that there will be further delays in the existing CCS competition. This was launched in 2007 and should have been finalised this month,” he said.

“The Government must now show real urgency and vision to ensure UK CCS demonstration plants can be up and running as soon as possible.”

The Government’s proposals received a more unequivocal welcome from the TUC. General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Today's announcement is a real breakthrough for the future of clean coal technology in the UK and will create tens of thousands of skilled manufacturing jobs.

"The TUC has long argued that investment in clean coal technology has a crucial role to play in guaranteeing energy security and easing the transition to a low carbon economy. The Secretary of State has set out a bold vision for clean coal that business, unions and communities can rally around."

The environmental lobby is not so sure. While welcoming the fact of a consultation process, John Sauven, executive director at Greenpeace, said Ed Milliband needed to go much further.

“His proposed policy leaves us with the threat of a massive new coal plant at Kingsnorth that would only capture and bury a quarter of its emissions and pump out six million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, making it the dirtiest new power station built in Britain for decades,” he said.

"Britain could and should be a global leader on climate change and Ed Miliband has the power to make that happen, but first he has to rule out emissions from new coal-fired power stations, like Kingsnorth, and set a deadline for closing the existing coal plants like Drax."

This is strong stuff, coming as it does on same day E.ON announced that it would be working with engineering firms MHI and Foster Wheeler Energy Limited to develop the technology to allow, what it says will be, up to 90 per cent of carbon emissions to be captured from its Kingsnorth site.

"The Government has shown clear support for the development of cleaner coal with carbon capture and storage so we're keen to push forward with as much of the engineering work as possible in order to ensure the capture plant is designed to completely integrate with the proposed new units, in line with the consultation," said Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK.

"We've already made a commitment to fit capture technology to the proposed new units at Kingsnorth, dependent upon the outcome of the consultation, but that of course also relies upon us being granted approval to go ahead with the project," he added.

The closing date for responses to the Government’s consultation document is September 9 2009.