Mixed messages

You tell me what the government is thinking. I'd love to know.

I think they're on the right track - Hutton was heard to announce that "No coal plus no nuclear equals no lights. No power. No future.". Equally Lord Smith (head of the environment agency) said that "we need to ensure that they [Coal fired power stations] are part of a solution to the challenges of climate change".

Excellent - and probably correct. I don't want to rely on russian gas for 75% of my electricity either.

Where I start having issues is where Lord Smith continues.
"Any new coal power station to be built should have a consent that requires that it helps demonstrate the technology... such a consent should be strictly time-limited and only renewed if carbon capture and storage is fully deployed".

This does worry me. It shouldn't - CCS will work, at a power station sized scale.
The trouble is that I can't pin-point when (only that it will be commercially ready within the next 10 years) and I'm worred that we're going to need to replace more than one power station (when really we only need one to demonstrate the technology) before we can fit them with CCS - the technology not quite being ready on time.
Effectively we might steer ourselves into a technology gap which we doesn't have to be there.

I'm more than happy to say "by 2020".

Part of the problem is the differences in costs between the CCS plant and the income from the avoided carbon. So it's really good to see Lord Smith say that "a funding mechanism will be urgently needed to support this [CCS]development".

Mixed messages. Yes, we need CCS and coal. The government recognise that.

I'm just worred we're heading towards a technology gap that even James Hansen recognises doesn't need to be there.