Category: Climate Chaos

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

The new ‘dash for gas’ will leave us depen­dent on a high­ly pol­lut­ing and increas­ing­ly expen­sive fos­sil fuel for decades to come. It would make even our mod­est car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets impos­si­ble to hit, and cause house­hold ener­gy bills to soar even fur­ther. While ener­gy com­pa­nies prof­it, our chances of a secure and sus­tain­able future are slip­ping away.

This action is there­fore in defence of the glob­al com­mons, which are under sus­tained attack by pol­lut­ing fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies. We are here to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er and the rush to fur­ther ingrain an ener­gy sys­tem that puts short term prof­its of the few, above the col­lec­tive needs of the many.

Replac­ing our out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture with clean alter­na­tives will gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs. The tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wrest pow­er from a car­tel of ener­gy com­pa­nies, and back into the hands of com­mu­ni­ties.   The dash for gas makes no sense for any­one except the big ener­gy com­pa­nies. We need a clean­er, more resilient and eco­nom­i­cal­ly just ener­gy sys­tem — and we’re here to fight for it. This is the new bat­tle­ground for our ener­gy future.

Climbers abseil down inside of chim­neys and halt con­struc­tion

 

This morn­ing, more than twen­ty cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. They have climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and have abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. They are now set­ting up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­naces the plant is unable to oper­ate.

The occu­pa­tion fires the start­ing gun on a huge nation­wide bat­tle over Britain’s ener­gy future, with activists deter­mined to stop gov­ern­ment plans for a new dash for gas. They are call­ing instead for a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem.

The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul.

The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing the chim­ney. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, peo­ple are get­ting flood­ed out of their homes, we’re see­ing droughts across the world but the ener­gy com­pa­nies are mak­ing a killing. We’re here because we want an elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem that doesn’t cause our world to warm and our bills to rise ever high­er. Gas is expen­sive and high­ly pol­lut­ing, but if the Gov­ern­ment gets its way we’ll be reliant on it for decades. Instead we should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices. Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

Ewa Jasiewicz is on top of one of the chim­neys. She said:

“A new dash for gas will leave the UK utter­ly reliant on this dirty expen­sive fuel for decades to come. Our ener­gy sys­tem is being run by a car­tel of cor­po­ra­tions that has this gov­ern­ment in its pock­et. As long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, we will have an ener­gy sys­tem that ignores the needs of those suf­fer­ing most from cli­mate change and ris­ing ener­gy bills. With a quar­ter of the UK’s out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture need­ing to be replaced, we have a once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in renew­ables that could gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs, rad­i­cal­ly cut emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide and sta­bilise ener­gy bills. Clean green tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.”

Notes to edi­tors: · West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. · It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. · When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay.[i] · The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. · The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon budgets.”[iii] · Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [iv] · He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions regulations.[v] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning consent.[vi] · Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon budgets.”[vii] · Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [viii] · Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter. · Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix] · An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x] · The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi] [i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2012/jun/21/world-carbon-emissions-league-table-country [ii] http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/7980-TSO%20Book%20Chap%205.pdf and http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc7ad3ee-fd8d-11e1-8e36-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27O6cJ1io [iii] http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/EMR%20letter%20-%20September%2012.pdf [iv] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/28/gas-fired-power-stations-uk?INTCMP=SRCH [v] http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_025/pn12_025.aspx [vi] http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/energy-security/3425-statutory-security-of-supply-report-2011.pdf [vii] http://downloads.theccc.org.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/Letters/EdwardDaveyMP_Letter270312.pdf [viii] http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/RetMkts/rmr/smr/Documents1/SMR%20update%2028–03-12.pdf [ix] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/30/germany-renewable-energy-revolution [x] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/wind-shale-gas-icm-poll [xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf