Row over coal power station plan

I heard this on the radio this morning, and I have to admit that my first reaction (pun intended) was "If they don't like the idea of a coal-fired power station, let's build a nuclear powered one instead. That'll keep us within the CO₂ emissions limits"

As usual, there appears to be an amount of hyperbole spouted by both sides.

E.ON Spokesman: "A 20% cleaner design, with all the carbon stored in old oil wells"

How are we measuring the level of "dirtiness"? Units, equipment?

Are we separating the carbon (in elemental or compound form?) before pumping into underground? Does this mean we're still dumping all the other pollutants into the atmosphere? If so why? Why not just pump all the exhaust gases underground and remove all pollution?

I haven't seen the plans of this station, so I may be doing the engineers/designers involved a disservice, but

Why not build a Combined Heat & Power (CHP) plant? This would raise efficiencies significantly, result in a cooler gas stream going to "well-fill", resulting in lower pumping costs/(tonne coal burnt) and provide heat to local houses/factories/offices, thus reducing their electricity/oil/gas consumption.

And instead of a coal fired station, or perhaps in tandem with, why not have a waste incinerating power station (CHP of course)? There are several round the UK now, so there is evidence of their actual stack exit pollutants (I believe they are well controlled - the old-tyre burning power station in Scotland has lower pollution levels than a coal-fired, I believe). This would have the added benefit of reducing landfill (and therefore helping the UK to meet EU targets on this*)

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FoE:"to an outdated and dirty coal-fired power station"

Hmmm...not what 'tother spokesman said. I got the impression it was to be a new cleaner design.

Energy campaigner Robin Webster said: "If built, Kingsnorth power station will undermine the government's commitment to meet European targets for producing 20% of energy from renewables by 2020. If it is serious about tackling climate change the government must throw out this proposal and promote investment in clean and green alternatives."

How big a wind farm is needed to supply 1.5M houses? Is the wind profile at Kingsnorth suitable? How much would such a farm cost? What back-up power capacity is needed? If the power is generated elsewhere, how long will the power lines be? Are you willing to live under high voltage power lines?

I would be ecstatic if we could supply 20% of our electricity from renewable sources, but we have to look at the costs - all of the costs - of the available technologies. These aren't just monetary. They are aesthetic costs, the cost to wildlife, the cost to quality of living. I think one of the things that most annoys me about the non-technical "green" brigade is that the very people who complain that coal fired power stations are a blot on the landscape and that this is one of the reasons they should be removed/disallowed are the very people who refuse to accept that argument against wind farms (for example).

We have heard how the raising of temperatures in rivers has altered the ecology there and green (I use the word loosely) organisations have campaigned (rightly) to prevent or at least minimise this. So why are so many of them happy to dam (and damn) the Severn Estuary in the name of renewable (tidal) energy? This won't just alter an ecology, it will remove this unique ecosystem forever. It makes all the campaigning against chemical plants there in the 70s rather a waste of time.**

I am not against renewable energy technologies, nor am I a fossil fuel freak. It's just that I think it's about time we learnt the lessons of the past, which teach us time and time again that "the miracle solution to all our problems" doesn't exist. It always has a downside, a cost. We do have the technology and wit to determine the majority of the costs to society of renewable energies in advance (unlike the Curies who did not have the tools to predict the effects of overexposure to radium) and so we should take a brave pill, sit down at our drawing boards and computers and look at the issues critically rather than blindly rushing in where the angels just ain't going. Then WE, the engineers, should put on our clever hats and design round them.

Otherwise, I'm pretty certain, our children or grandchildren will be cursing us as some of our contemporaries are cursing our Victorian-era grandfathers.

We cannot just stop using fossil fuels immediately, as we do not have enough viable alternatives at the moment. So what we should be doing is looking to wring the maximum benefit from every ounce of fossil fuel we burn and, where possible, design the power stations such that they can be converted easily to burn other fuels, such as waste materials, bark chip waste from paper pulping, used toilet paper (ok, maybe that's going too far, but what about nappies?). This will fill the gap between our needs now (which we should also be reducing) and the fantastic new energy that's soon to be discovered (what was that just flew past my window?).

I believe that one way forward will be to move away from centralised power generation in many areas to individual micro-generation plants (perhaps fuelled by fermentation of our waste?) and to power stations that generate not just electricity from the turbine cycle, but also extract heat from the flue gases to use as heat - after all to heat houses uses only low grade heat, not the high grade required for electrical generation.

Finally: do you think the reporter knows that those great big clouds of "pollution" seen in his picture are clouds of water vapour? We have five power stations (all coal fired I believe) in sight around here and each has its own down-wind weather system...the cloud trains from the cooling stacks are clearly distinguishable from the natural cloud formations. As the land is flat, the effects are easily observed.

Please Note:
I have not considered the other sides to the energy balance: reducing our consumption and recycling. Both are important, just off topic here.

* The reason that the UK traditionally favoured landfill as a method of dealing with waste is that it had a large number of gravel pits to fill in. The end of this resource coupled with EU legislation to prevent landfill has resulted in the change of policy. I'm waiting for the day (and I think I'll live to see it) when we excavate old landfill sites as a resource for scares compounds/materials. And just think of all that lovely methane we could mine...converting it to CO₂ would actually reduce its greenhouse gas rating!!

**On this subject, I was horrified when a retired friend of mine said "Darn the animals, we need the power generation, so they just shouldn't be a consideration" (I paraphrase). I pointed out that without the animals we wouldn't have a "usable" world, so it behove us to look after their welfare too. To do otherwise was a) selfish and b) self-harming.