Though Cowards Flinch

As I grope around the science and environmental watchdoggery, I really do wonder at the debate over a new power station at Kingsnorth. This would be the first coal-fired power station to be built in twenty years and unfortunately for the coal industry, it is going to be built here in Kent, which is a virtual paradise for the sort of activist dilettantism that is everyone’s favourite stereotype. No one seems able to answer a basic question like, in the remaining six years of life for the current plant, is there another way we can generate 800MW of power for the region without forcing the cost of electricity through the roof?

Since that is the case, a part of me tentatively supports building the new coal-fired plant.

Such an admission might seem a bit perverse, bearing in mind recent announcements by the government that there are plans to force coal plants to fit carbon capture technologies. Ed Miliband’s department admits that this could force them to close. It may seem even more perverse when the G8 has today announced that it will attempt to ensure an average global temperature rise of no more than 2 degrees between now and 2050. Added to which, we know that coal is amongst the dirtiest of carbon fuels to burn for the production of power.

On the other hand, the UK government is going to miss its 2010 target of a 20% reduction in carbon emissions by a fair margin. The other members of the G8 are refusing to require China to abide by rules that could govern the extent to which fossil fuels are burned. No one has any idea whether or not to believe a word that comes out of the mouths of Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy and the rest when it comes to climate change, or third world debt or pretty much any other subject for that matter.

In the midst of all this, what is one more or less coal fired power station? I would suggest ‘not a big deal’.

There are titanic issues at stake however. The first of which is that we simply can’t trust what business tells us. EON, the owners behind plans to refurnish Kingsnorth, have obviously devoted significant resources to telling us how green they are and how they’ll be reducing carbon emissions. The second is that we’ve got no means of recourse when governments promise the moon and stars, use the media to tell their people what has been promised and then slack off in their efforts – which the Labour government has clearly done from its earlier promises.

Occupying Kingsnorth, which is one of the only activist suggestions I’ve seen kicked around, is not going to solve the problem. Passing legislation that will push the coal industry back towards state ownership is one possible solution; at least that way the existing profits could be redirected towards ensuring the most environmentally friendly extraction and use policies. To ensure that would happen, a link between environmental groups and unions could grow up – in fact environmental groups would need union support to ensure their policy hopes are implemented.

Needless to say no policy hopes are going to be realised if environmentalists alienate everyone by a blanket opposition to coal. It provides a fair chunk of British energy that is not readily replaceable. Absolutely we need greater investment in renewable energy sources; absolutely we need more co-ordinated research into and experimentation with global solutions to carbon emissions like Ocean iron- or urea-fertilization. Additionally, there are other areas of anthropogenic carbon emissions which require attention – such as agriculture.

It’s not as sexy to propose occupying a farm, though equally useless, but we need a reorganisation of agriculture on a global scale. Things like salinization and overgrazing can measurably affect the carbon content of the soil and the degree of conversion of that content into CO2. A rational reorganization of agriculture could have two objectives; feeding everyone and ensuring that we’re using land and distributing food in the most rational way possible. The market economy doesn’t seem capable, and national governments certainly aren’t.

In the meantime, however, we still need electricity. The power station at Kingsnorth supplies in the region of 1.5 million homes with electricity; we could switch it off tomorrow but we’ve no way to make up the deficit – and the environmental lobby hasn’t made a clear case as to what can be done for the region in six years time, when, ready or not, Kingsnorth will go offline.

What the plant at Kingsnorth definitely shows, however, is the unsustainability of a privatised energy market. EON has applied to the government for a £1bn investment to build the new ‘cleaner’ plant (though the money seems aimed only at making the plant “carbon capture ready” rather than actually implementing capture and sequestration plans. Such money, rather than being directed towards private profit, could be used in the construction of renewable energy sources to phase out power stations like Kingsnorth without increasing prices for people who need things like hot water and light.