Coal Fires Up Dreadlocked `Climate Camp' Protesting E.ON Plant

By Alex Morales

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- In a sloping field near the village of Hoo, 30 miles east of London, environmentalists with dreadlocks, lawmakers and academics are protesting plans to build the U.K.'s first new coal-fired power plant in 30 years.

E.ON AG, Germany's largest utility, proposed replacing the existing Kingsnorth station at the site in Kent with a more efficient, $2.9 billion model. The new plant may be equipped with experimental technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

Business Secretary John Hutton said on June 30 that ``coal is and will continue to be a feature of the U.K.'s electricity mix'' so the country can meet its energy needs. Protesters gathered at a tent city near the station have joined James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, demanding the plant be scuttled. They want expanded wind and solar power to help meet U.K.'s target for cutting emissions 60 percent by 2050.

``Given everything we know about climate change and the need to reduce emissions, this flies in the face of it,'' Simon Lewis, an University of Leeds Earth-science researcher who wears a nose-ring, said in an interview at the week-long camp. ``It's not just a thousand people in a field: this is a really important message to the world that we should stop using unabated coal.''

If the Kingsnorth plan is approved, it will open the way for six more coal-fired stations, committing the U.K. to a ``high-carbon future,'' Caroline Lucas, who represents the U.K. Green Party in the European Parliament, said yesterday in an interview from her office in Brussels.

`Climate Chaos'

``Kingsnorth is absolutely on the frontline of whether or not we manage to avoid the worst of climate chaos,'' said Lucas, who attended the camp on Aug. 4 and plans to go again tomorrow. ``If Britain, one of the richest countries in the world, can't deal with climate change without resorting to coal, it undermines our message to any other countries to try to do differently.''

The new plant would be 20 percent more efficient than the existing one, which burns coal and oil and will be decommissioned by 2015, E.ON says. The project has been short- listed in a competition for government funding to test whether so-called carbon capture and storage technology can reduce coal- fired plant emissions.

``A third of U.K. power stations are closing in the next 10 to 15 years,'' Emily Highmore, spokeswoman for Dusseldorf-based E.ON, said in an interview in Hoo. ``That's a very urgent deadline we are facing. If we don't fill that gap, the lights are going to go out.''

Queen Elizabeth II

All energy sources, including coal and renewable power, will be needed, Highmore said. Coal prices are more stable than those for oil and natural gas, and renewables such as wind and solar can be unreliable, she said.

The new plant's two 800-megawatt burners will cost about 1.5 billion pounds ($2.9 billion) and carbon capture and storage could add up to 400 million pounds more, said Highmore. Competition for government funding to test the approach is pitting E.ON against BP Plc, Peel Power Ltd. and Iberdrola SA's Scottish Power Plc, with a decision due next year.

In a Dec. 19 letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown that he copied to Queen Elizabeth II, Hansen, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's top climate scientist, said using more coal without the emission-reducing technology may accelerate floods, droughts and heat waves.

``If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters,'' Hansen wrote.

The E.ON plans were approved on Jan. 2 by Medway District Council. The national government must make the final decision, and no firm deadline has been set by the Department for Energy, Business and Regulatory Reform. For some residents, approval is vital.

`We Want Coal'

``The power station generates not just work for this area but finance: all the retail outlets rely on it,'' Gill Hannah, 56, a Hoo resident of 40 years, said in an interview at her house, which overlooks Kingsnorth station. Hannah, whose partner Terence Wheeldon works for E.ON, posted a sign in her window saying ``We want coal.''

The protesters say the new plant will emit at least 6 million tons of CO2 a year. They plan tomorrow to try to shut down Kingsnorth's existing power station by entering the premises by land, sea and air. Lucas, the lawmaker, said she hasn't decided whether to participate.

At the camp on Aug. 6, a boat made of plywood and plastic bottles was used to advertise the planned sea invasion, which calls for a flotilla of rafts to follow the tide down the River Thames. Protesters were also shown how to vault fences.

``A lot of us are ready to break the law, because sometimes that's necessary to make change happen,'' Isabelle Michel, a spokeswoman for the camp, said in an interview. ``This is how the domino effect starts: by saying this is not going to happen here.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.