http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... er-station

Eon has shelved it plans to be the first to build a new coal power station in the UK, it has been the site of very bitter protests (nothing like the old mine strikes though) as local residents and eco activists tried to stop the new powerstation.

My guess is that the company did not believe it would be able to recoup the capital investment of a huge new powerstation with future restrictions on CO2 emissions likely.

I am surprised!

BAA has also just pulled its plans for a third runway at Heathrow. That is most likely due to conservative opposition to it.

Now Hunterston 2 is put on ice as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... coal-plant


The governments Plan A of shoving its head in the sand and producing well written policy documents is in tatters, with the closure of Vestas due to a lack of demand for offshore wind turbines also happening in the past few months the UKs energy policies are down the toilet.

A very very good thing as they were madness given the current global climate and energy problems.

Time for the government and its successor to start actualy thinking for a change. On the big plus note they have hired David McKay as energy advisor.

Hi dolormin, I seem to remember reading a while ago that various tidal generating projects had also been canned in the UK. What's the plan over there? Where is the power going to come from as nuclear plants are decommisioned, North Sea gas depletes etc?

Nowhere, they just will be turning lights off when leaving for a vacation and taking a bottle with warm water to bed. Some might even consider using a daylight for reading.

Our energy policy is a complete shambles. For about 30 years it has been based on short term expediancy, like the rest of UK economic planning. In the 80s we had the 'dash for gas' where we built a large number of gas power stations to exploit our new found wealth and to crush the coal unions. The highly productive deep mines were abandoned and allowed to flood. In the 90s all things seemed summery and good, like Aseops cricket we sung in the summer while the ants worked away. By the turn of the century the full scale of the problems of global warming were evident, but the UK failed massively to invest its considerable aviation skill base into developing wind power (the UK is still one of the world top 5 aviation nations), we did nothing to exploit some of the worlds most powerful tides and made baby steps towards wave power (a tiny powerstation in the Orknies and another in Ulster), zip in terms of solar and our insulation of the nation was woeful for a nation so far north.

There are absolutely no excuses. Margrat Thatcher was a qualified chemist who was the first world leader to publically address global warming, she set up the Hadley Climate Centre and this added to the already impressive world leading centers of climate and meterology in Reading University and UAE.

The oil and gas has lasted longer than originaly predicted.

(Skipping the prince of Greyness John Major) Tony Blair made global warming a key part of his 1997 election platform. The UKs oil has been modeled and predicted by the DTI (although the decline rate has taken them by suprise).

Our other problem is the age of the fleet of coal and nuclear powerstaitons. They are due to be decomissioned in large numbers over the next 10 years. So the government in around 06 went scrambling around like mad for a 'solution' and someone found carbon capture and storage. So the government thought it had found the techno fix from heaven and proceeded to draw up new planning legislation that would railroad through new coal and nuclear plants but left tidal and wind power to the conventional planning process. The result is that it is very difficult to get new wind and tidal power built (Vestas, the world largest wind generator manufacturer has begun shutting down its UK factories) but a huge green light was placed over coal. The twist in this tale is that new coal had to be CCS 'ready'. That meant all a company had to do was have a car park sized space available for the technology should it ever become ready for a coal power station to be declaired CCS ready.

Then the UKs activist went beserk and started really protesting like mad, about the same time climate camp was formed specificaly to attract and train new activists. This created a huge momentum of climate activism. The governments responce was draconian. They unleashed the anti terror legislation and every trick in the book (Ill post links and videos if people are interested).

The activists were hitting a really deep vein in the mainstream UK and were attracting huge sympathy for both the cause and out of outrage at the governments crackdown. The scale of the popular revolt against many of these schemes got so big that the conservative party had made manifesto comitments to scrap the third runway at Heathrow and the big power utilities had pulled out of new coal fired power stations.

Now we are in a bit of a pause. At the 12th hour, before ground was broke, the UK is now having to re-asses its priorities.

Political lassitude and expediancy now bring the UK to the stark choices of global warming and peak oil.

I am one of the least doomerish peak oilers, and now the UK has the choices on a plate. Chose powerdown, restructuring and the world of renewables (desertec, Thames Estuary wind farm, Severn )Barrage or we can cling on to the dreams of coal, oil and gas.

If we are f+cked, we f+ckd ourselves.

On the bright side we probably have a good 3 years until people start realising climate change is a load of rubbish and the lights will be going out soon. That's plenty of time for any rational person to emigrate.

And leave Doetchland... to whom?

Dorlomin, bloody good post - just about sums things up here in UK.

We are run by idiots, thats for sure.

We have wasted our valuable natural gas by producing electricity. Typical plant - up to 4 rolls royce jumbo jet RB211 engines screaming away 24 / 7 - natural gas intake is a 12" (or larger) transmission main running at up to 1000 psi. - no wonder the gas is running out quickly.

Yes, indeed the deep mines are flooded & infrastructure gone. My local colliery at Parkside / Leigh was closed in 1993, just after £ millions had been spent on modernisation and new rail loading facilities. Left to flood as you say.

What do the silly buggers who lead us do ? - Ban 100watt electric light bulbs. I give up.

Gasmon

Gatwick wants to expand.

Not a cats chance in hell.


Gatwick flight paths go over marginal soon to be tory seats in South London and are vital for the tories in both the London assembly and could be very import come the election after next. If the tories green light a new runway for South London after stopping one in west London they can kiss sweat good bye to about 3 or 4 parliamentry seats at least and probibly thin waffer thin green cred.

Pity, might have made a nice post peak velodrome