Image - Kelvin Mason
More than 150 people protested at Aberthaw on Saturday 28th January, demanding that the Welsh government take urgent action against the power station. In September last year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that RWE’s coal-fired plant had repeatedly exceeded limits on toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. A report by Friends of the Earth estimates that ‘pollution from Aberthaw is responsible for curtailing the lives of 67 people in Wales every year’. Plumes of NOx and particle pollution from the plant also spread over swathes of southern England, Ireland and as far as France, resulting in 400 premature deaths per year. The pollution also causes asthma, bronchitis and low birth-weight in babies. The FoE report calculates that the annual cost of the premature deaths from Aberthaw’s pollution is almost £38m pounds in Wales and £226.4m in total. Yet, in In January 2016, RWE received a public subsidy of £27m to continue operating the plant.
Although the ECJ found against the UK as the member state, the responsibility for air pollution rests with the Welsh government via Natural Resources Wales (NRW). Last week Nadia De Longhi, Operations Manager for NRW commented: “We are considering the judgement from the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the implications of how we regulate Aberthaw power station. We have now written to RWE Generation UK plc notifying them of our intention to review and vary the environmental permit, and have requested information from RWE to inform this variation. We are waiting for a response.’
