Oxfam takes on E.ON in email tussle
4 December 2008
While the number of people who've taken our E.ON action has been steadily rising for the past few weeks (we've now well past 4,000 sign ups), things took a turn for the unexpected the other day.
Though we often receive email replies to our campaigns, these are usually from you - Oxfam supporters - so we were taken by surprise when Paul Golby - E.ON's Chief Executive - took it upon himself to reply publicly by mass emailing all of you who've written to him via our website.
E.ON are well within their legal rights to do this, but as you can see from reading our return reply they weren't exactly generous with the full facts.
We thought the 'best' bit was where Paul Golby wrote: "carbon capture ready cleaner coal-fired power station".
A clever sentence, not least because of alliteration (though we're not sure if it's deliberate). But the key words are "ready" and "cleaner".
Kingsnorth is indeed "ready" to capture its emissions insofar as E.ON have bought a field next to the power plant, "ready" to build on. At the moment Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) doesn't even exist on a commercial scale. The plain fact is that there is no guarantee that CCS will ever be fitted to Kingsnorth: E.ON itself has refused to commit to any such guarantee.
New coal at Kingsnorth will also be about as "clean" as the language in an episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Even if it goes ahead with CCS it would only capture a small fraction of the plant's massive emissions (only applying to 300MW of the plant's total of 1,600MW of electricity generation).
There is one positive line where Paul Golby writes, "E.ON places tackling climate change at the very heart of our business".
We welcome this commitment, but there's clearly a huge gap between what E.ON is saying publicly and what it's doing in practice. Behaviour which we believe is downright dangerous when the effects of climate change are already having a disproportionate impact on people living in poverty. And though Oxfam is certainly NOT against the development of carbon capture, there are other ways of cutting emissions - like energy efficiency and investing in renewables - that are tried and tested and ready to go.
Anyway, take a look at the response in full - it's lengthy but makes for interesting reading. And after you've scrolled through, head back to this page and leave your own thoughts in the comments section below. Or if you're feeling all-fired-up (coal-related joke there), take our E.ON action (feel free to edit the template letter on the page and vent your thoughts in Paul Golby's direction).
Comments:
I was with e.on and in a debate with them. If E.on and other companies were serious about cleaning up they act towards the enviroment they all would have gone thermo years ago. Which would have been cheaper on the companies and cheaper for the customers. As the earth core is already sending upwards towards the earth surface heat plus radiation heat coming from the sun. It makes logic sense to go that way, aswell as the technology is already there as I found out from a scientist from America. Also with MGM sending people to look for alternative in North America above Canada and found a new source of fuel we should have seen lower cost in our winter fuel bills back in September 2008. Even earlier this year of 2008. So E.on and the other companies are only lining pockets through high profits from us the cusumers. Yet old people may have winter allowance but by the time they have paid both electric, gas and water bills with it the winter allowance is gone within month and a half. What about the rest of winter that they got to face with Paul Golby and the rest of fuel market? Lower these prices so we all can survive this winter, or is it policy to kill people all for the love of profit. Bring back common sense. Also everyone time to go thermo.
Paul | December 19, 2008 12:35 PM