Britain must set deadline to close dirty power plants

By Jeremy Lovell LONDON (Reuters) - The British government must set a deadline for closing all coal-fired power stations whose smokestack emissions have not been slashed by carbon capture technology, a parliamentary report said on Tuesday. The Environmental Audit Committee also warned against the government allowing coal-fired power plants to be built that were "CCS ready" -- able to be fitted with carbon capture and storage technology once it is commercially proven and available. "Carbon capture and storage has undoubted potential, but there is a real question about when it will become technologically and, equally importantly, commercially viable," said committee chairman Tim Yeo. "We cannot afford to develop new coal-fired power stations when we have no guarantee about when they will be fitted with CCS, if at all," he... [read full story]