It’s a big week for power station news. OK, that might not sound hugely interesting but bear with me. The outcome of decisions about to be made could influence the future direction of a chunk of the world’s power supply – and the carbon emissions, global warming and potential catastrophes that come with that.

UK and US debate coal

Here in the UK the first new coal power station in decades moved a step closer after a local council in Kent gave its approval to the project. Although the council couldn’t really have blocked it, a lack of opposition from them smoothes the way slightly.

Environmental groups are unsurprisingly not so thrilled about the idea, although the company behind the plan insists it will actually reduce emissions by replacing current, dirtier coal plants – see their website. News coverage in The Guardian, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph.

As the Boston Globe notes, coal is also hitting the headlines in the United States where Massachusetts, where the state is debating whether to provide millions of dollars in incentives for upgrading of coal power plants to cleaner technology (via Knight Science Journalism Tracker). If this passes, environmentalists claim, it would provide an incentive for coal at the expense of renewable sources.

The nuclear option

In America a coalition of environmental groups is demanding that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stop renewing the licenses of America’s nuclear plants (coalition press release). The coalition says a report from the commission’s own inspector general shows much of the re-licensing is done without adequate checks. The report itself isn’t quite this bleak (report PDF).

China, never one to sweat too much over environmentalists’ concerns, is definitely going more nuclear. State news agency Xinhua says construction of the country’s first third-generation nuclear plant is set to begin in March. Of course they’re also building a new coal plant every week or so, according to some estimates.

Finally, back to the small island where we started: a group of academics in the UK has slammed the government’s consultation on nuclear power (their report available here). “We are profoundly concerned that the government’s approach was designed to provide particular and limiting answers,” says group member Paul Dorfman (Guardian). Dorfman is quoted as a senior research fellow at the University of Warwick but the only page listing him on their website doesn’t make it very clear what he does there [See comment below, the page seems to have changed since this post was published and now makes very clear what he does there – Ed, 17/06/08].

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