March 13, 2007

scientists and engineers react to the news of a new coal power plant

This follows announcements by two energy companies concerning the construction of coal-fired power plants in Essex and Kent.

Nick Riley, British Geological Survey and Co-ordinator of the EC Network of Excellence CO2 GeoNet, said:

“The big message is that the UK and Europe has to replace a considerable number of power plants and plans/investment decisions to do this are being made now- as this RWE announcement shows.

“It is vitally important that such plants are built with CO2 Capture and Storage in mind. If we do not, each power plant that we build will lock in high emissions for several decades.

“Meanwhile it is vitally important that effort and resources to accelerate addressing the “many financial, legal, regulatory and technical hurdles that need to be overcome before carbon capture can be implemented” recognised by RWE are mobilised.

“What is clear is that CO2 capture and storage is the only technology that deals directly with the problem of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. If all fossil fuels had their CO2 captured and stored when burnt then we would not have a problem.

“Efficiency gains will reduce the rate of emissions, but we will still end up with the CO2 being released over the long term. Moving to non fossil energy sources will not guarantee that fossil fuels will not be burnt- we may just displace them into being burnt elsewhere.

“We have only a short time left to reduce emissions globally to stabilise the atmosphere at 550ppm CO2. Even if CO2 Capture and Storage was implemented now to provide one seventh of the effort to reduce annual emissions we need to be capturing and storing from at least one new power plant each week, every week, globally for the next 40 years. So far- the world is building none!

“Britain could be the first to do this. We have the right geology, our power plants need replacing, we have and we have the political aspirations for dealing with climate change across all parties. That’s the challenge.”

Professor Peter Styring, Professor of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry, University of Sheffield, said:

“While coal is a ‘dirty’ option, the technology exists to clean up emissions. It is low on CO2 emissions relative to other fuels. However, the capture and storage option is a short term approach. We are loosing carbon from the planet and storing it under the oceans is just putting off the problem to a later date. What we need to be addressing is CO2 capture, activation and CONVERSION into new consumer products and fuels. “