May 11, 2007
The high price of clean coal
Clean coal technology, in which the carbon dioxide produced by burning the black stuff is captured and stored, is being heavily promoted as an answer to global warming by many in the power and coal mining industries. As part of its forthcoming energy white paper, the UK government will hand out subsidies to a handful of clean coal projects around the country, and most of the UK power generators are expected to compete for the cash. In today’s Times newspaper, however, Centrica, owner of British Gas, warns that clean coal plants will be expensive and a high price for carbon in the European Emissions Trading Scheme, as well as initial subsidies, will be needed to make them economically-viable.
UK energy companies are busy planning new coal-fired power plants, but are hedging their bets on clean-coal technology until they know more about the government subsidies available, and the forecast for carbon prices in the third phase of the European ETS, from 2012. RWE Npower said today it is looking at building a new £2bn coal-fired plant at Blyth in Northumberland. The new 2,400MW plant will be more efficient than older power stations, and will be "carbon-capture ready". Cynics suggest that this means little more than having enough spare land available at the site to possibly build clean coal equipment in the future……
Cleaning coal pollution misses the point. Coal will still remain a decreasing fossil fuel and will stop the development of renewable energy.
Lower cost wood based biomass is about to come onto the market and would be the perfect replacement for gas, coal and oil for all hospitals, schools, public and commercial buildings. It will be cheaper than coal and so will actually save money.
Government subsidies are only needed once to convert oil and gas boilers and then the whole process is commercially sensible.
However if cleaner coal is promoted there will be a much slower conversion rate as less change is needed.
Posted by: Antony Blakey | May 15th, 2007 at 12:55 pm | Report this comment