Kingsnorth Power Station, Kent, UK [Photo by David Bowen, reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Licence]

“A Happy New Year” to you all, and I return with the good news that Medway Council has given its approval for two new coal-fired power stations in Kent.

These will replace the current, and ultimately threatened, Kingsnorth Power Station, a 1,940 MW dual-fired plant employing both coal and oil, with a 10 per cent biomass mix of mainly cereal co-products, which is situated on the salt marshes of the Hoo Peninsula in the Medway Estuary, north from Rochester, Kent, and directly across from Gillingham Football Ground. The plant is run by E.ON UK, and it has a port facility which enables the importation of low-sulphur coal.

E.ON are now proposing to demolish the old plant, and to construct two new 800 MW supercritical coal-fired power units on the site. When completed, these will be the first new coal-powered plants in the UK since Drax power station in 1986 and one in Northern Ireland, 24 years ago. E.ON claims that the new plants will be 20% cleaner, and hopes that, when finally approved by the Government, the power stations will be up and running in 2012, providing enough energy for 1.5 million homes.

And so do I. Of course, all the usual suspects are bleating away, but I feel that the enormity of the looming energy ‘black hole’ in the UK is starting to dawn on people’s consciousness, and it is beginning to worry them more than the nebularities of ‘global warming’. After all, because of forty years of criminal neglect by politicians of every hue (who were cushioned by the rich resources of North Sea gas and oil), coupled with the imminent closure of our ancient coal-powered stations (following EU directives) and the taking out of service of our older nuclear plants, we are now facing a gap in generation of between 30 to 50 per cent, which no amount of wave, wind, and waffle will fill.

In reality, we urgently need new coal plants like the two now proposed by E.ON (even if they are smaller than the original, which eventually would have been shut down), at least one further generation of nuclear power stations, as well as additional gas plants and some ‘renewables’. Taking off the rose-tinted spectacles, I’m afraid that ‘renewables’ will toil to provide more than 12 per cent of our requirements (15 per cent if we are lucky). The final mix will be something like: 30 per cent gas; 30 per cent coal; 25 per cent nuclear; and 15 percent other. Some would like to see the nuclear contribution higher.

As I have always argued, energy realities are at last starting to focus UK minds. About time too.

[You can hear me talking about this, today (Thursday), both on Radio 5 Live (Richard Bacon - c. 10.15 am) and on Radio 2’s ‘Jeremy Vine Show’ (immediately after the News)]