Are you in favour of a new generation of coal power stations in Britain?
The controversial Kingsnorth plant proposal involves traditional coal-fired units. I think it would be quite irresponsible to have any new coal power plants without carbon-capture storage. The technology is there in prototype on a small scale, so the challenge is to move to a bigger scale. We can only find out about the potential problems by trying it. The UK and Europe will be very important in that, as will Australia and the US. We need a lot of demonstration on how it can work. Are scientists getting closer to a detailed mapping of how a hotter planet will effect each region of the world? We are getting closer, but it’s tough to know precisely. It’s much easier to estimate at the global level – the overall amount of greenhouse gases and temperature changes. When the temperature changes get translated into changes to the climate and environment it does get quite complex and scientists are still working on these things. If you’re talking about predicting to a few square kilometres, wh
