Activists to protest about controversial plans for a new coal-fired power station

Here's a great article on why building a coal-fired power plant is really bad idea soley from a business prospective

Some highlights:

"Carbon regulation is the biggest and most obvious factor, but not the only one. The rising costs of plant construction and coal transportation are also a major factor: New cost estimates are far higher than the old cost estimates. Coal-fired power plants were expected to cost approximately $1 billion apiece to build, but the big ones are costing closer to $3 billion apiece. Early cost estimates looked at what would happen if each plant was built by itself, but if we build dozens at a time, the competition for engineers and steel and concrete becomes very acute. So there’s major international competition going on.

In terms of fuel price, a lot of these plants are being built because people estimated that the price of coal would be relatively low for years to come, but coal prices today are about twice what they were two years ago. And US coal is now being sold overseas—put on ships and taken to markets that really need it and are willing to bid a higher price than we’ve been used to seeing. That’s a problem especially because when analysts predict that these plants are cost-effective, they’re assuming 30-50 years to pay off the bonds raised to construct them. In other words, the plants only make sense if you think that the fuel will be accessible for the next 40-50 years."

They are really expensive to build and are only profitable with a lot of government help AND if coal remains really, really cheap.

So environmental problems aside the government is investing a lot of money on coa-fired power plant and praying that coal stays cheap forever.

And if it doesn't?

(insert sound of tax payer money being flushed down the toliet here)