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West Fife and Coastal Villages SNP Councillor William Walker today welcomed the news that Longannet is the in the lead to become the UK's first demonstration plant for carbon emissions (CO2) capture and storage. Cllr Walker, a Chartered Engineer himself and a member of both the Fife Council Environment, Enterprise and Transportation Committee and the Carbon Emissions Reduction Board, said: "This is all very positive news for Fife." He explained: "This all fits in well with Scottish Power's quest to become the cleanest possible generator of electricity using coal. The Company is already spending some 170 million pounds on flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) which is another step towards the cleanest possible operation. Longannet has come a long way since being labelled 'the dirty man of Europe' just a few years ago! And, of course, we have the 25MW biomass coming along soon. "Of course, the Scottish Government is currently looking at the possibility of re-starting deep-mining of coal in West Fife, so everything is beginning to fall into place for long-term energy generation in Fife under the best environmental and economic conditions. Wind farms are fine but are intermittent in electricity generation and require a far bigger back-up of 'firm' electricity such as with coal, so that the lights, literally, don't go out. Cllr Walker concluded: "With a methane gas survey and extraction project also due to start soon in the area, West Fife is now well on track to become a power-house of modern energy conversion with all that means for local, quality employment and sustainable development into the future". |
