The Demise of the Cambois/Blyth Coal Power Station Plans

By Malcolm Reid on Nov 24, 09 10:40 AM

Monday 9th November 2009 was a special day in East Northumberland's renewable energy story. At 2 pm a delegation of 7 Cambois residents and I met with the County Council Leader and two Senior Officers to present evidence that the proposed Cambois/Blyth power station will not happen in the foreseeable future, and to call for the derelict site to be re-designated under the new Core Strategy for Northumberland for clean green technology and new housing. This would also enable the Port of Blyth to carry out its desired re-organisation, and be consistent with the regeneration of SE Northumberland.

The site has been left as rubble since the old power station was demolished 6 years ago, creating a nightmare for the residents, who presented photographs illustrating the decaying conditions they have been enduring. The Council Leader agreed to an escorted fact finding visit.

At 5 pm, on the same day, I received a call from Dave Black at the Journal asking if I had any comment on RWE npower's announcement that the proposed power station was to be shelved indefinitely! We hadn't been expecting such quick results.

The reasons we had given for the unsuitability of Blyth will continue to apply even if in the future carbon capture and storage at scale proves to be viable:

Any new coal stations need to be built where there are clusters of CO2 emitters, so that only one main pipe will be required to carry the CO2 to an exhausted offshore oilfield, if the technology of capture and storage can be shown to work. Despite the Alcan works, Blyth does not fit this requirement.

The National Electricity Grid has a low capacity in the North of England and is not adequate for the increased capacity of the proposed power station. Any upgrade of the grid is very expensive.

The proposed Blyth power station capacity exceeds local needs and would require long transmission distances with accompanying energy losses.

Even the coal front runner, Kingsnorth in Kent, the only coal power station proposal with planning consent and which suffers from none of these drawbacks, has recently been deferred for 2 or 3 years.

We also knew that RWE has a second potential site at Tilbury, which it prefers for the above reasons and because there is no present opposition group there, according to their meeting in Germany. That proposal has also now been frozen.

The nervousness of the industry about investment in unknown technology in the present economic climate is there for everyone to see.

The welcome news could have been spoiled by the government's announcement, also on the same day, earmarking 10 potential nuclear sites. Apparently Druridge Bay had been considered again and rejected.

The way is open for the continued regeneration of SE Northumberland with clean technology and for Blyth in particular, the expansion of its renewable energy expertise, especially in the 'wet' renewables of wave, tidal stream and offshore wind energy. And the people of Cambois want the dark cloud lifted from their lives, so that their community can be revitalized with confidence in what is potentially a beautiful peninsular.

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