Activists blockade Aberthaw power station
Fossil Fools Day 2008
3 April 2008
10 Bristol activists are blockading Aberthaw coal power station, the worst polluter in Wales. This is a joint effort with Bath, Cardiff and Oxford activists to draw attention to a major UK company behind climate change. Numerous actions have been taking place over the week to disrupt major climate change contributors as part of Fossil Fools Day.
Today members of Bristol Rising Tide are participating in an action that has stopped normal work at Wales' biggest polluter, Aberthaw power station in the Vale of Glamorgan. The power station, condemned by workers for its poor safety record, last year pumped out more than 7.4 million tonnes of CO2; 28,000 tonnes of nitrogen dioxide and 31,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide.
This action comes after the successful closure by activists of Ffos-y-Fran open cast mine in Merthyr Tydfil on Tuesday 1st April. Ffos-y-Fran is the biggest mine in Europe and has been forced upon the people of Merthyr Tydfil in-order to fuel the dirtiest of all power stations and big business's greed for profit.
As the world acknowledges the need for a substantial reduction in carbon emissions the government and the Welsh Assembly have given their backing for the mining company Miller-Argent to spend upwards of 17 years extracting 11 million tons of coal from the nearby Ffos-y-Fran open cast mine in Merthyr Tydfil to continue feeding this power station.
As fossil fuels go coal is a serious contender for the dirtiest known. But despite the fact that coal-burning generators produce twice the carbon emissions of gas burners, the government intends to build £20 billion worth of new coal-burning generators by 2020.
Gordon James, director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, described the power station as a “dirty dinosaur” that should not be allowed to stay open in its present form. But RWENPower, the generating company that runs Aberthaw, said, “It is true Aberthaw Power Station is a large emitter of CO2 and that there are other emissions involved in power generation.”
Bristol Rising Tide believes that it is crucial to highlight the concerns and issues surrounding the development of Aberthaw and the proposed new investments into Coal powered generators such as Kingsnorth power station in Kent. The site of the next Camp for Climate Action.
Ciara, a member of Bristol Rising Tide states: “The burning of coal at Aberthaw and the new power stations across the UK such as Kingsnorth will only exacerbate the problems of climate chaos. People need to know that the government is hell bent on returning us to the dark age of fossil fuel.”
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