MPs urge government to ban non-CCS coal power plants

The UK is in danger of missing its emission reduction targets unless the government moves quicker to promote carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems and bans new coal-fired power plants that do not have the technology fitted.

That is the conclusion of a major new report from the environmental audit committee of MPs, which criticises the government for the "regrettably slow" progress that has been made to implement CCS systems in the UK.

The government is running a competition for the first industrial scale CCS demonstration project in the UK and has signalled that future coal-fired plants, such as the proposed facility at Kingsnorth in Kent, must be "CCS ready" and able to have the required carbon capture technologies retro-fitted.

However, the committee claims that the government has not gone far enough and that it must now impose a clear deadline, after which the building and operation of coal-fired power stations that do not have CCS systems fitted would not be permitted.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the committee, said that the commitment that new plants should be "CCS ready" provided no guarantees that the technology would be fitted quickly enough. "We cannot afford to develop new coal-fired power stations when we have no guarantee about when they will be fitted with CCS, if at all," he explained.

The report will further crank up pressure on the government to increase its support for CCS and also provide clearer guidelines as to the circumstances under which it would approve the proposed Kingsnorth project.

E.ON, the company behind the proposals, has urged the government to delay its decision on whether to green light the project until it has set a clear definition for what it means by "CCS ready". Meanwhile, Conservative leader David Cameron last month committed to effectively ban all new coal power plants that do not fit CCS, by imposing minimum emission standards on new facilities.