Plans for Kingsnorth push ahead despite 'clean coal' talks

· Greenpeace concern over draft planning conditions · Energy firm 'looking to finalise' building contracts
Terry Macalister and Alexandra Topping
The Guardian,
Wednesday August 6 2008

The energy company at the centre of a row over the proposed new Kingsnorth coal-fired power station is pushing ahead to finalise new building contracts, despite its insistence in public that it has put plans on hold until ministers complete a consultation on "clean coal" schemes, documents seen by the Guardian show.
Officials at the department of business who are handling the controversial plant have also completed a revised set of draft planning conditions for the German firm E.ON which make no reference to carbon capture and storage (CCS), news that has angered environmentalists.
The revelations are disclosed in an exchange of emails between the company and government officials, as activists take part in a week of protests against the coal-fired unit. They want to halt plans by E.ON UK to replace the existing Kingsnorth plant. Medway council has approved the scheme, and the final decision will be made by the government.
A note written by Doug Waters, the senior development engineer for E.ON on the Kingsnorth project, to Mohammed Gary, a civil servant at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, calls for a meeting to discuss planning conditions relating to construction "as we are looking to finalise contracts".
The email is dated May 12, six weeks after Paul Golby, the chief executive of E.ON UK, told ministers to defer making a decision on planning permission until after a consultation on clean coal schemes and the use of CCS, which is intended to trap greenhouse gases.
Last night, E.ON said it was natural for a company to proceed with as much work as it could before a final decision was made on how CCS would be organised, and on the wider question of whether new coal-fired power stations would be allowed.
Asked why some planning consent documents did not make reference to the clean coal process, a company spokesman said: "There are many parts of a power station that you can build, such as the boiler house and turbines, that have nothing to do with CCS."
The business department said: "This draft document should not be viewed as signalling anything about our intention to require carbon capture readiness if consent were to be granted to E.ON."
But Greenpeace claimed last night that it was significant that revised planning consents had been drawn up with no reference to CCS, or even to climate change.
Ben Stewart, communications director at Greenpeace, said: "They reveal an extra level of collusion between the government and Britain's biggest single carbon emitter. The energy minister has been telling the public that a new plant could bury its emissions, but privately its department is telling E.ON it won't have to."
At the site of the proposed plant, tensions grew yesterday with police accusing a "hardcore group" of preparing for criminal activity. Makeshift weapons were recovered next to the site on Monday evening, according to police, but no conclusive evidence had been found that they belonged to activists. Police said they had met with physical resistance from some activists, but protesters accused officers of using disproportionate force.