Kingsnorth: George Monbiot

The Guardian, 18 March 2008

"If Kingsnorth goes ahead, it will be operating by 2012, two years before the CCS [carbon capture storage] experiment has even begun. The government says that the demonstration project will take 'at least 15 years' to assess.

It will take many more years for the technology to be retro-fitted to existing power stations, by which time it's all over.

On this schedule, carbon capture and storage, if it is deployed at all, will come too late to prevent runaway climate change.

Kingsnorth will produce around 4.5m tonnes of CO2 every year; if all eight of the proposed coal plants are built, they will account for 46% of the emissions Britain can produce by 2050, assuming the government sticks to Brown's new proposed target of an 80% cut.

Aviation, using the government's own figures, will account for another 184% (these figures are explained on my website).

Even if we stopped breathing, eating, driving and heating our homes, the new runways and coal burners the government envisages would more than double our national greenhouse gas quota.