Union calls for more investment in clean coal technology

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) yesterday warned MPs 10,000 jobs are at risk in the coal mining and power industries unless there is rapid investment in clean coal technology. “Ministers say that the UK will have its first carbon capture plant operating in five years’ time, with another three in place by 2018, but this isn’t soon enough,” said Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC. “Our coal power industries are too important, as is the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, for this not to be the government’s number one energy priority right now.” Yorkshire is home to a number of CCS projects, coal mines, power stations and other big carbon emitters. Trials of this technology, which aims to trap carbon and pipe it deep under the North Sea, are planned for Drax in Selby, Hatfield near Doncaster and Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire. However, the TUC warned without substantial investment in CCS technology many jobs hang in the balance as older coal plants will be phased out over the next decade. A dispute between the government and power firm Iberdrola over state funding has already put at risk what could be the UK’s first CCS project. The cost of Iberdrola’s Longannet CCS plant in Scotland is estimated at £1.2bn and the technology added to Britain’s second-largest coal-fired power plant was expected to start operating in 2014. Although not yet commercially viable, CCS is seen as a key technology to help the government reach its target of an 80 per cent reduction in emissions against 1990 levels by 2050. The Clean Coal Task Group, of which Doncaster-based miner UK Coal is also a member, presented a report to MPs at a meeting in Westminster yesterday. The report urges the government to quickly conclude the negotiations for the country’s first CCS demonstration project. It also calls for the government to speed up the process to open a competition for the next three CCS projects due to come on stream by 2018.