Yorkshire Against New Coal
Our children can’t challenge the government. We can. It’s their future and we owe it to them.
For the first time in 30 years the government want to start building new coal power stations. By 2015 half of the Ferrybridge power station will need to close. Scottish and Southern Energy are considering replacing this with a new coal power station. Yet, the government has said that to tackle climate change, we must reduce our carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050.
Einstein once said that the definition of madness was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Building new coal power stations will not tackle climate change. Coal is the most carbon intense of all the fossil fuels. If we are to tackle climate change we must tackle emissions from coal.
James Hansen, climate change expert with the American Space agency NASA has said that the “prompt phase-out of coal emissions, is the one critical element in solution of the global warming problem” If we fail to address global warming “we will hand our children a planet … with climate changes out of their control”
The year 2050 is only 40 years away, so the young people of today need our generation to act NOW!
Recently, the government’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, has been talking-up ‘clean coal’ technology (known as carbon capture and storage – CCS), saying that new power stations must install this technology to recover partial emissions by 2020 and then to recover all emissions by 2025. And here’s the rub. Look back on our web site and you’ll see that last year we were saying that CCS is unproven and is nothing more than a smokescreen to allow politicians and industry to build new coal power stations. Ed’s remarks are too little and quite frankly, too late. Miliband’s statement confirms that this technology is unproven and his statement is also full of dangerous loopholes:
- The technology does not exist on a commercial basis anywhere in the world. How can he therefore say that any new power station must use the technology to capture 25% emissions by 2020?
- Any new power station will need to capture the carbon emissions generated from 400MW electricity and then capture 100% of carbon emissions by 2025. That still means years of throwing out three times as many carbon emissions as ‘potentially’ capturing.
- What will happen if the technology fails to work? Will the new power stations be forced to closed or will they be allowed to continue spewing out dangerous climate change emissions > a case of business as usual?
- What about all of the old power stations that continue to burn coal > will they be forced to limit their emissions?
Ed Miliband’s statement is too little, too late, and shrouded in doubt. We cannot afford to wait and see if this technology may or may not work.
IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE THIS WAY. WE CAN SECURE A FUTURE FOR OUR KIDS AND AVOID CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE.
The power stations that are due to close over the next few years need to be replaced. These closures represent about 30% electricity generating capacity. However, the government have acknowledged that by 2020 we can generate 40% electricity from renewables > proven technologies that already exist, using natural resources such as wind, wave and solar.
We also need to be smarter with our energy and the government recognise that we could save £12 billion per year through energy efficiency. What’s more, the government confirm that to produce 40% electricity by 2020 could in fact create 160 000 jobs. Because we would be using natural resources, it would also mean that we have a more secure means of supply to keep the lights on. In other words, there is no need to replace the old power stations with new coal power stations.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Yvette Cooper is the MP for Ferrybridge. She has acknowledged that climate change will be devastating but has said that we need a coal future because we’ve always had it.
Is her political self-interest more important than our children’s futures?
Let Yvette Cooper know that new coal power stations are unacceptable. We should show international leadership and invest in clean, renewable energy technologies.
Write: 1 York Street, Castleford, WF10 1JS.
Email: coopery@parliament.uk
Better still, visit Yvette at her constituency surgery. Tel 01977 553388
To find out more please download our Ferrybridge Leaflet