Keeping the lights on - without new coal
"[U]nless we want to risk our security of supply and face greater cost burdens, stations such as Kingsnorth must be part of the energy mix."
"Currently, we have to use a mix of energy sources to power our country - fossil fuel, renewable energy and nuclear power. Together they provide us with a reliable electricity supply. And although the use of low-carbon energy sources is growing, fossil fuel will continue to generate power, not just here but around the globe."
Senior government and Big Energy have been working hard to propagate the idea that, to keep the lights on, we need to build new coal plants.
So, is it true?
The answer is no - and we've just published a report to prove it. We can plug the 'energy gap' without building big new power plants - whether they're coal or nuclear powered. And to do it, the government just needs to meet its existing energy efficiency and renewables targets.
Between now and 2020, if we met our EU renewable energy commitment and followed the government's own National Energy Efficiency Action Plan, there would be no gap to plug - and we could cut the UK's CO2 emissions by up to 37 per cent, and reduce our natural gas consumption at the same time.
These targets are admittedly ambitious. (It's generally accepted that the EU renewable energy commitment means generating around 35 to 40 percent of electricity from renewables by 2020 as well as developing heat and transport.)
But the targets are also perfectly feasible. The report - commissioned by ourselves and WWF and published by Pöyry - explores six scenarios with differing contributions from onshore and offshore wind, biomass, and marine and solar power to show how they could be met.
There was no need to build any major new fossil-fired capacity – either coal or gas - up until 2020, in any of the scenarios. After 2020, when more of the UK’s coal and nuclear plants are due to close, the report observes that there are a number of options, including for example highly efficient industrial combined heat and power plants, and further roll-out of renewables. Key, as always, is energy efficiency - that unsung hero of the battle against climate change.
These findings put the government in a pickle; if it keeps asserting that we need new coal to keep the lights
on, it's really saying, "we don't think we'll meet our renewable energy
targets". And this despite Gordon Brown's pledge that:
"Britain led the way to an agreement that by 2020 one fifth of all Europe's energy should come from renewables - a near three-fold increase. The UK worked hard to get agreement to this target. And let me make it absolutely clear: we are completely committed to meeting our share."
As a result, Malcolm Wicks resorted this morning to snide comments about people who oppose new coal plants:
Mr Wicks said a “lay person” might think energy policy was “about windmills”. But “the rather boring fact is that the world is going to be burning lots of coal”.
I have to wonder what the UK's former Chief Scientist and the world's leading climate change scientist make of that make of that justification for the Kingsnorth plant proposed by EON.
You can read the full report here.
