Gloves Off in British Energy Battles

Last year, the British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, announced that a "dash for gas" was the solution to British energy needs. In late October, twenty-one activists calling themselves "No Dash for Gas" scrambled up a power station to hold a sit-in three hundred feet up in the sky. The targeted plant, West Burton, a combined cycle gas turbine under construction in Nottinghamshire, is owned by the British energy provider EDF Energy (subsidiary of the French energy giant Électricité de France, the world's largest producer of energy). It is one of the first of twenty new gas-fired power stations planned to be built in the United Kingdom by 2030. At full capacity, it will emit approximately 4.5 million tons of CO2 annually, more than the annual emissions of Paraguay. Like many new gas stations, it will be exempt from British emissions regulations.