Britain has not built a new coal fired power station in years. Power bills have jumped 40% so far this year.
Britains major power supply companies are warning that consumers can expect blackouts during the winter as their aging power station struggle to keep up with demand.
They are warning that power bills will go up another 15% this winter.
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“At the start of the year, the average dual fuel bill was £912 (AUD$2,025), but this has climbed twice so far this year to hit £1,303 (AUD$2,894). A 15 per cent increase in the New Year would cause prices to hit £1,500 (AUD$3,331).”
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Britain’s Environment minister Lord Smith has come out and stated publically that no new coal-fired power station can be built unless they are fitted with full “carbon capture and storage”.
On of the UK’s leading Journalists Christopher Booker writes in the UK Telegraph that carbon ‘carbon capture and storage’ is just a “green dream”.
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According to a McKinsey report given last week to the European Commission, the capital cost of a coal-fired power station fitted with “carbon capture” will be two or three times that of a conventional coal-fired plant.
Its operating costs could then also be double, not least because they will need to burn up to 60 per cent more coal to generate the same electricity.
At present, to generate 35 per cent of our power, we burn 52 million tons of coal, 22 million tons of which we have to import from Russia. To fit our power stations with “carbon capture” we would need to build at least four more large coal-fired plants just to make up the power diverted into disposing of CO2.
And to do that we would have to become even more dependent on imports from such unreliable sources as Russia, at a time when coal prices are already soaring.
Now, for yet another wholly unproven “green dream”, we are being asked to more than double the cost of coal-fired electricity yet again. ……… we will soon have to choose between these fantasies and our survival as a nation.
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Meanwhile Australia is going to spend $100m of tax payers money a year on a clean coal institute to pander to environmentalist fantasies, to produce what? Produce power at double the cost from coal-fired power stations.
Thats a good idea when a recent survey said that 53% of Australians would support action on Climate Change as long as their power bills did not go up by more than $10 a month.
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Tags: Carbon Capture, Christopher Booker, CO2, Coal Fired Power, UK
