Greens welcome rejection of Hunterston coal plant
For immediate release 9 November 2011
Green MSPs today congratulated campaigners against the proposed coal-fired power station at Hunterston following the decision by North Ayrshire Council to reject the development. The Scottish Parliament has previously voted against this proposal, backing a Green motion on March 18th 2010.
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
"The idea of a new coal-fired power station was always incompatible with Scotland’s climate change commitments, and if it had been approved we would have seen something in the order of 50 million tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere, quite avoidably. Even with the commitments from the developer to try out the speculative technology of carbon capture and storage, this would be taking us in entirely the wrong direction.
"Scotland needs to move away from fossil fuels, not lock ourselves in to decades more of coal-fired power generation. The challenge to Ministers now is that they must commit to honouring local democracy, not stepping in and over-ruling Councillors to force this project through, which was their approach with the Trump scheme."