Thursday 3 January 2008

If built, the plant would badly undermine the UK's ability to reduce its carbon emissions – and WWF is calling on the government to withhold final approval for the station unless carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment is installed from the outset.

"Last month in Bali, the UK government was calling for global emissions to be more than halved by 2050, so this case is a key test of whether it really means business," said Keith Allott, Head of WWF's Climate Change programme. "There is now plenty of evidence that the UK can make very deep cuts in its carbon emissions through energy efficiency, renewable energy and, potentially, fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. But granting consent for a coal-fired plant without a fully working CCS system will only serve to undermine efforts to develop a clean and secure energy system for the 21st century."

Permission has been sought by E.ON UK to build the new power station on the site of an existing coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth in Kent. The company has proposed that the station could eventually be used to trial CCS - a process that aims to trap carbon emissions and store them, for example in disused oil and gas fields under the North Sea. However, as yet CCS technology is untested on such a scale. E.ON is proposing that its new station would be 'CCS ready' - in other words, that CCS equipment can be installed at a later date.

"A promise of carbon capture and storage readiness simply isn't good enough - the station could still claim to be 'CCS ready' in 30 years' time, while merrily belching out carbon in the interim," added Keith Allott. "If the power industry believes that CCS has a role, it needs to put its money where its mouth is and determine now whether the technology really can play a safe, environmentally sound role in the production of low-carbon energy."

Medway Council has received nearly 9,000 objections to the proposal. Although the council made no formal objection to the project, it did call for the Secretary of State to recognise public concern and to hold a public inquiry, and to explain how the plant fits with current climate change policy and energy plans. WWF strongly supports this call for a public inquiry into the matter.