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If generation of UK electricity from coal is to have a future, the Government needs to give its urgent backing to developing clean coal projects, which would not only limit the UK's dependency on gas for electrical power generation but would also help the country move towards a low carbon economy, the TUC's Clean Coal Task Group says today (Monday 31st March). A new report from the Group - which includes unions and employers from across the coal and power industries - says that ministers' delays to backing the emerging technologies behind clean coal and carbon capture and storage are causing uncertainty and delaying vital investment, increasing risks to the UK's security of electricity supplies. Clean coal would help reduce the UK's over-dependency on gas, a predicament made worse by an increasingly volatile international environment, just as the country's own North Sea supplies are reducing, says the report. And if the Government is serious about meeting its targets on the UK's CO2 emissions and security of supplies, then new high efficiency, low carbon, coal power stations are a must. According to the report, the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the UK could also have a significant impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions around the globe, given the dependency of the Chinese, Indian and American economies on coal-fired power. The report recognises that environmentalists opposed to fossil fuels see the use of coal as a barrier towards progress on climate change, but it insists that a new clean generation of coal-fired power stations could significantly reduce the UK's carbon dioxide emissions. New coal stations - like the proposed Kingsnorth project in Kent - are 20 per cent cleaner than existing coal-fired plants (and will be 80-90 per cent cleaner once carbon capture and storage is added). These stations can be built now says the report, capture-ready, so that carbon capture and storage can be added as soon as the technology has been tested on a full-size power station and the necessary regulations are in place. If carbon capture and storage is added to all the coal-fired and gas-fired power plants likely to be built in the UK by 2016, the report says that the UK's carbon emissions from power plants could be cut by 42 per cent by 2025. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Carbon capture and storage can help make coal clean and the Government must throw its weight behind the technology if the UK is to maintain coal-fired power generation amongst all the other sources of power generation, including renewables and nuclear. 'Ministers need to show how they intend to boost research and development into carbon capture and storage, build capture ready power plants, and establish a CO2 pipeline infrastructure - all of which would be good for the environment, security of supplies, the economy and employment in the UK.' Clean Coal Task Group Chair Mike Farley said: 'If we are to avoid nearly 60 per cent of our electricity coming from gas by 2016, then new clean coal power plants need to be built now. 'If these are built capture-ready and if CCS is demonstrated in parallel, we will set the right global example to countries which will continue to use much larger quantities of coal for the next century and longer. We would position ourselves ready to implement CCS widely and could then achieve the deep cuts in carbon emissions from fossil fuels which are the targets of the Government and the EU.'
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