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I’m on the Rainbow Warrior and we’ve just reached Britain's most controversial power station, with our peaceful flotilla plus a police helicopter and police launch for good measure.
As we came alongside the jetty, our stern line was cut to prevent us from mooring. Now, from the deck of the Warrior, John (our executive director) is negotiating with E.on staff standing on the jetty a few feet away to be allowed to hold our commmoration ceremony on the site of the proposed new plant.
So why is it so important that we stop E.on from building a new coal plant at Kingsnorth? (And by 'we', I don’t just mean Greenpeace - far from it. I mean development, faith and environment groups with a combined membership of four million. I mean the scientists, politicians, unions and citizens who are standing up against new coal. I mean the great and the good of Kent who oppose Kingsnorth.)
This is why:
• Coal is the biggest threat to the climate. As the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels, it's historically responsible for most of the fossil-fuel CO2 in the air today - about half of all fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions globally.
• Kingsnorth is one of the most important climate change decisions any politician faces anywhere in the world right now. Not only will it emit as much CO2 as the thirty least polluting countries in the world combined, it will also open the floodgates to a devastating new coal rush in the UK, locking us into high levels of emissions for decades to come.
• Don’t believe the hype: none of these plants will have the capacity to capture and store the CO2 released when coal is burned. So-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is still in its infancy and may not be ready for years, if at all.
• Two thirds of the usable energy going into a coal-fired power station never even makes it to our homes. By the time you’re reading this, two thirds of the energy used to power your computer is lost - up the cooling towers as waste heat, along the transmission lines and through end-use efficiency. These inefficiencies could be wiped out by adopting decentralised energy.
• We don't need new coal. To keep the lights on and cut emissions, the government just needs to meet its existing energy efficiency and renewables targets.
• The new Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband is expected to make a decision on whether or not to permit a new plant at Kingsnorth within the next few months. If the government gives E.on the green light, it would destroy any chance we have of persuading China and India to stop building coal plants and send them the message that it’s OK to have another century of coal burning.
• Britain is at an energy crossroads – and this is an opportunity, not a threat. If ministers say no to coal, Britain could then embrace a clean energy future, creating swathes of green collar jobs and a new manufacturing base while slashing emissions and increasing energy security.
It’s really not rocket science. Read the Case Against Coal to find out more and, if you’re interested in a genuinely clean and efficient energy system, find out how decentralised energy works.
In the meantime, I’ll be blogging, Twittering and Moblogging as events unfold – and you can sign up to give coal the boot here.
