NEWS IN BRIEF – WATCHING
- RBS most implicated in financing tar sands
- E.ON and Scottish Power receive government CCS grants for coal power stations RBS most implicated in financing tar sands A new report by PLATFORM, Cashing in on Tar Sands, reveals that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has underwritten corporate debt and equity worth nearly $2.5 billion with tar sands related companies since the government's initial bail out of the bank in October 2008. RBS is now 84% publicly owned. Comparing levels of corporate finance, debt underwriting and equity issuance from Barclays, HSBC and RBS to tar sands related projects and companies, the report reveals that RBS provided by far the highest amount in loans - $7.5 billion. UK banks are second only to North American banks in their share of finance provided to the tar sands industry, with RBS providing the highest level of lending out of all banks outside of North America. The report coincides with the revelation that RBS is opening an 'oil and gas advisory' in Calgary, Alberta. Tar sands extraction in Canada is devastating Indigenous communities, wildlife and vast areas of boreal forests, as well as being many times more carbon-intensive to produce than ‘conventional’ oil. High oil prices have caused a rush to extract from oil companies, as well as a rush to finance this increasingly lucrative, and intensely destructive, business. Link: www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/documents/ciots.pdf
E.ON and Scottish Power receive government CCS grants for coal power stations E.ON and Scottish Power have received government funding to design commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration plants, over the next twelve months, for their respective Kingsnorth and Longannet coal fired power stations. The precise amounts awarded have been hidden behind 'commercial confidentiality', though it is known that it is drawn from an overall sum of £90 million announced in the 2009 Budget. The government has promised public money at the end of this design process for the construction of between one and four commercial-scale CCS coal fired power stations. No such power station exists anywhere else in the world, whilst scepticism over its viability and cost is widespread. The current energy bill makes provision for a levy on consumer bills to pay for the installation of CCS technology, pushing the onus and burden from power companies onto individuals and threatening increased fuel poverty in the UK. Relying on CCS as a climate change technofix does nothing to address the severe social and environmental injustices brought by coal mining across the world. The Scottish Power bid, in conjunction with National Grid and Shell, involves designing retrofitted CCS for the company's Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife. E.ON hope to design a system which captures emissions from a “cluster” of coal power stations in the south east, allowing it to construct new coal power plants. In the words of Scottish Power's chief executive Nick Horler, this is the first time CCS is being taken “from concept to design stage”, an apt description for an expensive and centralised technology which exists only on the drawing board and is championed by power companies fearful of losing profits through the closure of coal fired-power stations. Link: www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e191774-2647-11df-aff3-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
- E.ON and Scottish Power receive government CCS grants for coal power stations RBS most implicated in financing tar sands A new report by PLATFORM, Cashing in on Tar Sands, reveals that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has underwritten corporate debt and equity worth nearly $2.5 billion with tar sands related companies since the government's initial bail out of the bank in October 2008. RBS is now 84% publicly owned. Comparing levels of corporate finance, debt underwriting and equity issuance from Barclays, HSBC and RBS to tar sands related projects and companies, the report reveals that RBS provided by far the highest amount in loans - $7.5 billion. UK banks are second only to North American banks in their share of finance provided to the tar sands industry, with RBS providing the highest level of lending out of all banks outside of North America. The report coincides with the revelation that RBS is opening an 'oil and gas advisory' in Calgary, Alberta. Tar sands extraction in Canada is devastating Indigenous communities, wildlife and vast areas of boreal forests, as well as being many times more carbon-intensive to produce than ‘conventional’ oil. High oil prices have caused a rush to extract from oil companies, as well as a rush to finance this increasingly lucrative, and intensely destructive, business. Link: www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/documents/ciots.pdf
E.ON and Scottish Power receive government CCS grants for coal power stations E.ON and Scottish Power have received government funding to design commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration plants, over the next twelve months, for their respective Kingsnorth and Longannet coal fired power stations. The precise amounts awarded have been hidden behind 'commercial confidentiality', though it is known that it is drawn from an overall sum of £90 million announced in the 2009 Budget. The government has promised public money at the end of this design process for the construction of between one and four commercial-scale CCS coal fired power stations. No such power station exists anywhere else in the world, whilst scepticism over its viability and cost is widespread. The current energy bill makes provision for a levy on consumer bills to pay for the installation of CCS technology, pushing the onus and burden from power companies onto individuals and threatening increased fuel poverty in the UK. Relying on CCS as a climate change technofix does nothing to address the severe social and environmental injustices brought by coal mining across the world. The Scottish Power bid, in conjunction with National Grid and Shell, involves designing retrofitted CCS for the company's Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife. E.ON hope to design a system which captures emissions from a “cluster” of coal power stations in the south east, allowing it to construct new coal power plants. In the words of Scottish Power's chief executive Nick Horler, this is the first time CCS is being taken “from concept to design stage”, an apt description for an expensive and centralised technology which exists only on the drawing board and is championed by power companies fearful of losing profits through the closure of coal fired-power stations. Link: www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e191774-2647-11df-aff3-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
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