Government's own watchdog voices opposition to coal plans

The government's plans for a new generation of coal-fired power stations received a major blow today after its own green watchdog, the Environment Agency, recommended that no new coal power plants should be built without carbon capture and storage (CCS) capabilities.

Earlier this week, business secretary John Hutton reiterated the government's plans for a new fleet of coal-fired power stations, claiming that "I will not turn my back on another critical source of energy security for the UK: coal."

The government would like new coal plants to include CCS capabilities and has pledged that any new coal-fired power plants will have to be "CCS ready". But it has repeatedly rejected calls to mandate the fitting of such systems, arguing that the price of carbon imposed by Europe's emissions trading scheme will encourage energy firms to deploy the technology as a means of curbing emissions.

However, in its response to the government's CCS consultation the Environment Agency said that simply ensuring new plants are carbon-capture ready is " insufficient for the climate change challenge that we face".

Environment Agency chairman Lord Chris Smith said the government should rethink its plans for new coal-fired plants, such as the controversial proposals for a new plant at Kingsnorth in Kent.

"Building a new generation of coal-fired power stations without capturing the carbon emissions would lock the UK into using high-carbon technology for decades to come – this is not an environmentally sustainable way of generating power given the challenges we face with climate change," he said.

He added that where the government does grant approval for new coal plants it must ensure that CCS is fitted as standard.

"Any new coal power station to be built should have a consent that requires that it helps demonstrate the technology," he recommended. "Such a consent should be strictly time limited and only renewed if carbon capture and storage is fully deployed."

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said that it was also calling on the government to accelerate plans for a £1bn CCS demonstration project. "If all new plants are to have CCS, we need to prove that it works at commercial scale and we need to do that as fast as possible," he said.

The Environment Agency's recommendation comes just days after a new study from consultancy McKinsey and Co concluded that while the price of carbon emissions would encourage energy firms to install carbon-capture systems, the commercial case for such deployments was unlikely to be strong enough before 2030.