Concern over power plans; GREEN CAMPAIGNERS QUESTION CLEAN COAL.

Byline: AMY HUNT

MORE must be done to make sure a new generation of coal-fired power stations do not harm the environment.

Green campaigners today responded to a Government announcement on plans for up to four new coal plants to be built before 2020.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the power stations would have measures to cut their carbon emissions and at least a portion of each one must be fitted with carbon capture and storage (CSS).

This method of trapping the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide produced by burning coal and storing it underground is a project on which experts in Newcastle and across the North East are already working.

Supporters have welcomed the announcement as heralding a return for the coal industry in the North East. But green campaigners say the carbon capture technology is not yet advanced enough and some question whether it can work at all.

Malcolm Reid of PANiC Stations, a group which is campaigning against a new Coal Fired Power Station at Blyth, said more effort should be put into exploring other sources of energy such as wind and wave.

He said: "Mr Miliband's proposal is a fig leaf for building four huge unabated coal power stations, each with a small pilot plant attached for testing if carbon capture and sequestration is possible and viable.

"It is a technology that will take at least 10 years to develop by government admission, if it does indeed work. In the meantime the power stations would be pumping out massive amounts of CO2." Prof Dermot Roddy, professor of energy at Science City, Newcastle, said: "There are projects here in the North East that could benefit from this announcement. But following on from that is the question of where do we get our coal from? "I think the Government has taken a step towards underground gasification, which is the work we are looking at in Newcastle and will mean we can use North East coal without having to turn it into gas." Blaydon MP Dave Anderson welcomed the Government's announcement.

Mr Anderson, who sits on the Government's energy select committee, said: "The question we should be asking now is, if we are convinced, and I am, that coal power stations can be used in an environmentally sound way, then where do we get that coal from? I think there is still a future for the coal we have buried in the North East. Certainly nothing has been said to rule that out." Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods, the deputy minister for the region, also lent her support..