“We welcome the closure of three UK coal power stations”

Three coal pow­er sta­tions are to close by the end of the month. A move wel­comed by cam­paign­ers fight­ing open­cast coal mines in the UK and against cli­mate change.

Lon­gan­net is Scot­land’s last coal fired pow­er sta­tion. This pow­er sta­tion has been respon­si­ble for one fifth of all of Scotland’s cli­mate change emis­sions. [1] Coal burnt in Lon­gan­net has been import­ed from Colom­bia, Rus­sia and the USA, as well as being sup­plied by open­cast coal mines in Scot­land. [2] As a result of Lon­gan­net’s clo­sure Har­g­reaves, the main coal min­ing com­pa­ny in Scot­land, has announced it will close all but one of its Scot­tish mines. [3] This move has been wel­comed by local cam­paign­ers, the Scot­tish Open­cast Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance, who are now fight­ing for a full restora­tion of the sites aban­doned by pre­vi­ous mine oper­a­tors and a ban on open­cast min­ing. [4]

SSE stat­ed that Fer­ry­bridge pow­er sta­tion was fore­cast to lose £100m over the next 5 years, and that the polit­i­cal con­sen­sus is that coal has a lim­it­ed role in the future, mean­ing that keep­ing the sta­tion open is not sus­tain­able. [5] SSE are also to close all but one unit at their oth­er coal pow­er sta­tion Fid­dler’s Fer­ry this year. Fer­ry­bridge is in West York­shire.

Egg­bor­ough has failed in its attempts to gain sup­port from gov­ern­ment to con­vert the pow­er sta­tion from coal to bio­mass and will now close. [6] Its clo­sure is wel­comed by cam­paign­ers work­ing to end our addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. Egg­bor­ough is in North York­shire.

Activist who have fought against the open­cast mines which have sup­plied these pow­er sta­tions cel­e­brate their clo­sure.

All, but one, of the UK coal pow­er sta­tions need to upgrade their air qual­i­ty con­trols in order to reach new Euro­pean Union air pol­lu­tion stan­dards. [7] The remain­ing 7 pow­er sta­tions need to eval­u­ate whether it is more eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable to upgrade or to close. The Coal Action Net­work is push­ing for the lat­er. This sum­mer Ruge­ley pow­er sta­tion will also close. [8]

Anne Har­ris from the Coal Action Net­work says, ‘We are pleased that this week the UK is mov­ing away from unsus­tain­able coal in shut­ting three of its 11 coal pow­er sta­tions. This will reduce the exten­sive dam­age caused to the com­mu­ni­ties in the UK, Rus­sia, Colom­bia and the USA where the coal is mined to pro­vide our elec­tric­i­ty. Clos­ing these coal pow­er sta­tions means that we will reduce our con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing.”

She adds, “Although we are sor­ry that this means job loss­es for peo­ple work­ing at these sites we feel that in bal­ance this is the best out­come, giv­en that peo­ple are being poi­soned and their liveli­hoods attacked to pro­vide the coal to these pow­er sta­tions. Now the Gov­ern­ment needs to act to ensure a prompt clo­sure of all coal fired pow­er sta­tions and an end to the mis­ery of open­cast coal min­ing.”

Notes to edi­tor

Con­tact Anne Har­ris for fur­ther infor­ma­tion

info@coalaction.org.uk

www.coalaction.org.uk

The Coal Action Net­work works with the com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing new open­cast coal mines, stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with peo­ple liv­ing in the shad­ows of the mines which sup­ply the UK world­wide, and is fight­ing to close the remain­ing UK coal pow­er sta­tions. At present there are five appli­ca­tions to open­cast mine coal in the UK and 13 sites which have plan­ning per­mis­sion but have not start­ed min­ing. In Decem­ber there were 25 oper­at­ing open­cast coal mines.

[1] Car­rell, S. (23/03/16) Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion to shut next year

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/23/longannet-power-station-to-shut-next-year viewed 24/03/16

[2] Coal Action Net­work (Jan­u­ary 2016) Ditch Coal www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal p81-82 viewed 24/03/16

[3] BBC news (16/02/16) Har­g­reaves to halt out­put at most Scot­tish open­cast mines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-35587858 viewed 24/03/16

[4] Scot­tish Open­cast com­mu­ni­ties alliance, Demand an end to new open­cast coal mines now!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/503/081/878/demand-an-end-to-new-opencast-coal-mines-now/#sign viewed 24/03/16

Har­g­reaves bought the most prof­itable coal min­ing sites in Scot­land from Scot­tish Coal when it liq­ui­dat­ed in 2013. Scot­tish Coal had been the tar­get of a long run­ning cam­paign against open­cast coal mines by the protest group Coal Action Scot­land.

[5] SSE (20/05/15) SSE Announces Clo­sure of Fer­ry­bridge Pow­er Sta­tion

http://sse.com/newsandviews/allarticles/2015/05/sse-announces-closure-of-ferrybridge-power-station/ viewed 30/09/15

[6] Egg­bor­ough Pow­er Ltd (02/09/15) Com­pa­ny Announce­ment http://www.eggboroughpower.co.uk/About-Us/Our- Values-%281%29.aspx viewed 30/09/15 Egg­bor­ough may come back online if there is a short­age in the Nation­al Grid dur­ing the win­ter of 2016/2017 under the Gov­ern­men­t’s Sup­ple­men­tal Bal­anc­ing Reserve.

[7] The Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive requires indus­tri­al plants, includ­ing the UK’s exist­ing coal pow­er sta­tions, to reduce emis­sions of sul­phur diox­ide (SO2), nitro­gen oxides (NOx) and

par­tic­u­late emis­sions which cause air pol­lu­tion. Pow­er sta­tions can either: com­ply with the direc­tive; not com­ply with the stan­dards (known as Lim­it­ed Life Degra­da­tion) and close with­in 17,500 oper­at­ing hours after 1st Jan­u­ary 2016, and no lat­er than 31st Decem­ber 2023; or par­tic­i­pate in the Tran­si­tion­al Nation­al Plan. [Coal Action Net­work (Jan­u­ary 2016) Ditch Coal www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal p83 viewed 24/03/16]

[8] Davies, R (08/02/16) Gov­ern­ment denies black­out risk as Ruge­ley coal plant unveils clo­sure plan http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/08/government-denies-blackout-risk-engie-rugeley-coal-power-station-shuts viewed 24/03/16