Save the world: drink EV-E.ON

Well it seems that someone has finally come up with a solution to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
The marketing geniuses have come up with EV-EON an "unnaturally carbonated water drink", which gets rid of all the pesky CO2, giving John Hutton the green light to go-ahead with his dream of a coal-fired UK.

On their April 1st launch day EV-EON said:

"Whilst we were outside the Houses of Parliament we came across some pesky students who were chanting against our proposed coal fired power station at Kingsnorth, so we interrupted and in front of the world’s media explained that it would all be ok because we now have the solution; carbon capture bottled water. They were so impressed they left happy as larry."
EV-EON

So there you go - a solution to the carbon capture problem we can all drink - provided of course that no-one ever burps.

Find out more about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

Drink EV-EON and help stop climate change*

*remember: no burping!

Live from the Coal Hole

Fossil fools aren’t in short supply these days. Today they’re being uncovered all across the country, and we decided to go straight to the source of the problem. Ffos-y-Fran opencast coal mine in south Wales will produce 10 million tonnes of coal over the next 15 years – which when burnt will release over 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Today we decided to make a stand for just leaving coal in the ground.

Over thirty protestors have entered the mine and occupied some of the enormous digging machines that are scraping out the coal hole. Another group have decided to block the front gate, and are stopping anyone getting in and out of the main compound. Yet more energetic activists have scaled the largest building on site – the coal washery – and are wrestling with an ambitious 36 metre long banner which declares: “Coal, the black hole in UK climate policy.”

Ffos-y-Fran (pronounced fors-ur-vran) is a potential monster, which will spread itself over 1000 acres, the area of a thousand football pitches – a 200 metre deep monster, just waiting to belch forth coal across the country, and coal dust across the town of Merthyr. It’s taken us in the climate change movement a long time to catch up with locals who have been opposing the mine, and others like it, for decades. In a short film on the website www.thecoalhole.org, local resident Alison is keen to make the links between local and global:

“I know that a lot of the climate groups are listening to us now – they’ve been shocked to hear about the scale of this scheme. When you think about it, Aberthaw [power station, in Swansea] is the largest polluter in Wales, and we’re feeding the largest polluter in the country. It doesn’t make sense.”

For coal, stopping Kingsnorth is the end of the line - the last chance to stop the carbon getting into the atmosphere. Ffos-y-Fran represents the beginning of the line. We know from the timidity of our government on climate issues that once the coal is out of the ground, it will probably be burnt. Al Gore said that he couldn’t understand why there weren’t rings of young people stopping bulldozers from building new coal fired power stations. Good thought Al, we’ve got to stop Kingsnorth. But today, we decided to take you at your word a few steps up the supply chain.
Pictures, videos, updates and more at www.thecoalhole.org
Flickr pictures of the protest

Fossil Fools Day

1st April is set to pack a punch this year. Across the world April Fool’s Day is being marked by climate change activists as Fossil Fool’s Day, a day of action against the climate wrecking fossil fuel industry. Organised by the Rising Tide network, which spans the UK, US and Australia, there’s set to be stunts, protests and direct actions happening at the workplace of climate criminals near you.

To find out more visit www.risingtide.org.uk

Protest circus for a coal Fossil Fool (BERR, 1 Victoria Street, 8 am on 1 April 2008)

The World Development Movement is organising a gathering to protest outside the Department for Business and Regulatory Reform (or BERR) to laugh at the minister for business, John Hutton. John Hutton is currently set to make a right fool of the government’s climate policy if he signs off on EON’s new Kingsnorth power station.

Everyone’s welcome to join in the collective hilarity and to demand Hutton takes the Kingsnorth decision very seriously. There will be a real circus feel, with jugglers, clowns and acrobats, so don’t hesitate to bring juggling balls or wear your squeaky nose or silly hat.

See the page on Facebook or just turn up.

Protest starts at 8am and will be over in time for you to be at work. Contact Rachel on 0207 8204900 for more information.

Kingsnorth coal campaigners plead 'not guilty'

Five Greenpeace volunteers faced their first court hearing today over the shutting down of one of Britain's dirtiest power stations, at Kingsnorth in Kent, last October. They pleaded 'not guilty' at Maidstone Crown Court to charges of criminal damage and trespass. The charges relate to climbing a 200m smokestack on the site and painting a message to the prime minister - "GORDON BIN IT" in huge letters down the side. They took action because the government is considering considering proposals for a new generation of coal-fired plants.

The five are Huw Williams, Emily Hall, Ben Stewart, Kevin Drake and Tim Hewke. They climbed 1,000 steps to the top of the smokestack as part of a wider move to shut down Kingsnorth. One of the dirtiest coal plants in the country, the facility emits an estimated 20,000 tonnes of CO2 a day. They were also protesting against plans to build Britain's first new coal power station for a generation at the site. A new plant would pump out millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases every year and open the door to at least seven other new coal fired power stations across the country.

Gordon Brown has been repeatedly asked to veto the plans but has so far refused. His government even convened a coal forum to "bring forward ways of strengthening the industry, and work to ensure the UK has the right framework to secure the long term future of coal-fired generation".

Mr Brown's decision on new coal will tell us how serious he is about tackling runaway climate change. Approving Kingsnorth would fly in the face of advice from the UN's top climate scientists, who warn that global emissions must peak and then fall dramatically within the next 100 months to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change. Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore said in August last year: "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations."

Last October there were, at Kingsnorth at least. And now they are preparing to stand trial for it. The trial date has been set for September.

Take Action

Please help to keep up the pressure against new coal plants by writing to Business Secretary John Hutton and telling him that we want him to put action on climate change before profits for business, and a public inquiry into Kingsnorth.

British banks funding climate change

Taken from a letter to the FT:

British banks urgently need to review their lending policies in the light of the climate change threat.

Given the present state of technology, investment in traditional coal-fired power stations is incompatible with a smooth and timely transition to a low carbon economy. On the contrary, new coal power stations without functioning carbon capture and storage built in from the outset will destroy any realistic prospect of meeting current UK CO2 emission reduction targets.

We are extremely concerned by recent loans made by British high street banks. During 2007, the Royal Bank of Scotland arranged around $1 billion for construction and operation of two US coal plants. RBS, HSBC and Barclays helped arrange almost $8 billion of loans for E.ON, the company behind plans for a new conventional coal plant at Kingsnorth.

In contrast, US banks last week released a set of “Carbon Principles”, increasing restrictions on loans to coal by recognizing the climate risks associated with financing such high emissions.

Given the climate threat that coal presents, and in the absence of carbon capture and storage as an existing and proven technology, we call on British banks to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change by announcing an immediate moratorium on all financing of traditional coal power plants, extraction and associated infrastructure.

Fay Mansell, Chair, National Federation of Women's Institutes
Benedict Southworth, Director, World Development Movement
Dr. Daleep Mukarji, Director, Christian Aid
Graham Wynne, Chief Executive, RSPB
Matthew Frost, Chief Executive, Tearfund
Ian Leggett, Director, People & Planet
Mika Minio-Paluello, PLATFORM

Protest outside E.ON's London office

Another video of the protest outside E.ON's London office that took place in January, following the announcement of plans to build a new coal power station at Kingsnorth in Kent.

E.ON:"If the population doesn't want the plant, we won't build it"

Could this be the shape of things to come?

It seems E.ON are getting cold feet about refitting one of their German power stations, at Staudinger near Frankfurt, after sustained popular protest against it.

Environmental campaigners, outraged that E.ON is continuing to pursue fossil fuels projects in a time of climate crisis, have successfully slowed the project by contesting coal storage facilities at the site, which would be essential for the revamp.

E.ON have long had their eye on increasing capacity of the Staudinger plant. However, it appears that popular opposition is putting the wind up them.

E.ON Chief Executive Wulf Bernotat glossed over the issue, saying that EON had ample opportunities to invest in power across Europe and would shift funds elsewhere if it faced too much protest.

Crucially he stated: "If the population doesn't want the plant, we won't build it"

So Wulf, does that go for Kingsnorth too?

James Hansen on Kingsnorth

Talking on BBC Radio this morning, Dr James Hansen described the proposed Kingsnorth power station as:

"A terrible idea. One power plant with a lifetime of several decades will destroy the efforts of millions of citizens to reduce their emissions"

James Hansen heads NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies and is best known for his research in the field of climatology and his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.
He is an outspoken critic on the Bush administration's policy towards climate change.
You can listen to the interview here.
James Hansen was also featured in the Sunday Times.

Stop Kingsnorth - No New Coal (from Indymedia)

Around 50 demonstrators protested against the proposed building of a new coalfired power station at Kingsnorth on the Medway estuary in north Kent, outside the offices of E.ON UK in Pall Mall on Friday afternoon (more may have arrived after I left early to go to another event.) The demo was initiated by socialist youth and students group Revolution, and LSE Green Party students, but supported by other organisations.

Medway Council have given their approval, but it has still to get the go-ahead from the government. It's a development that would seem to directly contradict their environmental polices, but that probably won't affect the decision.

As the Green Alliance have said: "If John Hutton allows construction of this power station to go ahead without doing so, he will chronically undermine the government's ambitions outlined in the climate bill that is passing through parliament. When passed, this will set legally binding targets for the reduction in CO2 emissions to 2020 and 2050. Set against the background of rising UK emissions the building of Kingsnorth as planned will set a very damaging precedent for future energy generation that will make these targets challenging or impossible."

See the original story on Indymedia including photographs from the event.

Stop Kingsnorth: latest news

Welcome to the Stop Kingsnorth: no new coal blog. This is intended to go alongside the www.stopkingsnorth.org website to provide a way for our roving campaigner to keep everyone up to date with the latest Kingsnorth and new coal developments.

To find out more about the World Development Movement's campaign on climate change see www.wdm.org.uk/climate

We will be posting images, news and photographs from the campaign.

Please comment on the posts: we also have a Stop Kingsnorth group on Facebook with a discussion area.