Protesters remain at power plant
October 9, 2007
Five Greenpeace campaigners have spent the night on top of a chimney at a Kent power station to protest against plans for a new coal-fired plant.
Eighteen protesters were arrested at Kingsnorth Power Station, at Hoo, on Monday after the group walked through security at the site unchallenged.
Some of them chained themselves to equipment and abseiled down the smokestack in protest at E.ON's plans.
The activists want the prime minister to reject proposals for the site.
E.ON UK has said the plant is still operational, although a heavy police presence was visible around the site on Tuesday morning.
The four men and one woman scaled the 656ft (200m) smoke stack on Monday, and spent the night painting Gordon Brown's name down the side of it.
The company wants to build a plant on the Kingsnorth site that could supply electricity to 1.5 million homes.
However, activists have warned it will pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and create a precedent for more coal plants in the future.
Protester Ben Stewart, 33, said: "We are facing a climate change emergency and we have not got the time to sit around. We have to force the issue.
"We want to have a planet we can live in and bring up children in. This will be difficult if countries like Britain build new coal-fired power stations."
Greenpeace spokesman Robin Oakley said the five protesters planned to climb down from the smokestack later on Tuesday, in the hope that Mr Brown would now "put his effort into supporting renewable energy".
On Monday, one woman was arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass after she gave herself up to officers.
Three more people were arrested at the pump house area of the plant on suspicion of aggravated trespass and criminal damage, police said.
And a further 14 were arrested after that in connection with aggravated trespass, a spokeswoman said.
Emily Highmore, from E.ON UK, said a thorough investigation into how the protesters got into the plant was under way.
'Reduced emissions'
E.ON UK announced in October 2006 that it planned to build two new coal units at Kingsnorth, saying they would be cleaner and more efficient than the current ones with "state-of-the-art technology" reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Greenpeace said more than 13,000 objections had been sent to Medway Council, but "in the next couple of weeks the decision will go to Gordon Brown".
E.ON UK spokesman Jonathan Smith said: "The new units will be carbon capture-ready, which means they would have the pipework on them to actually capture the carbon dioxide and to store it underground once that technology is proven."
The company estimates the two new units will reduce carbon emissions by about two million tonnes a year.
But Greenpeace has dismissed this, claiming the proposal uses a technology "little better than the power stations being built 30 years ago".
Print this page