Back to business. While we were otherwise engaged, the EC delayed implementation of the new round of combustion emissions regulations that would otherwise have precipitated early closure of many coal-fired power plants, possibly including the mighty Drax in Yorkshire, Europe’s largest.This new round is targeting NOx - not itself a major-league greenhouse gas: but forcing early closure of such plants would tend to reduce CO2 as a side-effect. (The longstanding Large Combustion Plants Directive, which targets SO2, is not affected: owners of coal plants have already decided whether they will be complying with this - Drax will - or closing after a set number of operating hours.)
As we’ve said before, economic considerations generally trump environmental when the chips are down – GDP beats GHG. The much-trumpeted Con-Lib enthusiasm for the ‘Green Economy’ will need to be tempered by this very basic consideration – what can we afford ?
ND
4 comments:
to wit, we can only afford gas. Does'nt sound very green though. Will be interesting to see what Huhne decides once the mandarins have engaged in a bit of real life education on him.
Save Didcot A!
that's a subtle one, Richard !
the new nuke policy will be interesting, CU
As I see it, our "betters" are eventually going to take steps to cripple Europe's (and possibly the USA's) economies in order to provide a "solution" to a non-problem.
The much-touted "consensus" on climate change has proven to be a church built on sand as many of its proponents are shown to be either incompetent or dishonest scientists. IMHO, NOTHING should be done to control "climate change" until a complete revamp of all the science has been done - from scratch, transparently and in the open.
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