10-04-2007: Today a group of people inspired by the Camp for Climate Action have disrupted the operation of Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station by locking themselves to machinery. Direct Action was taken to target the 3rd largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.
One of the group said “the threat of climate change is so huge and the government so complacent that the people themselves are now acting in proportionate response to this and targeting the root causes of climate change. It’s not enough to reduce emissions individually – we need to act together to challenge fossil fuel consumption.”
“Putting pressure on individuals to reduce emissions when companies like E.ON are profiting from this polluting industry is obscene and irresponsible. We should not be burning coal in the 21st century.”
Downloadable press release:
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk/press/pressrelease5.doc
press@eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk/
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Updates on the situation:
There were five people locked on inside the power station, two locked on to the conveyor belt taking coal into the furnace and three to the machines that riddle the coal, just before the conveyor belt.
Both of these lock on points meant that no coal was allowed into the main power station operation. The effect that this had accurding to the workers who were with us is that several of the units went off line and the power station was running at a reduced capacity. If we had stayed there for another hour we would have shut down the whole plant.
We also stopped two trains from unloading coal and cost E-on a lot of money in railtrack/ train time as well as not selling as much electricity as they had declared and so failing to met contracts and therefore been fined
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As one of the people arrested I cant say too much right now but here is what the workers were telling us.
At 9:45 when we locked on to the conveyer, they said they had less than 6 hours of coal left inside the plant. After 2 hours, production capacity was reduced massively. Generators came offline one by one, due to lack of coal. They had trouble putting the little they had through the machinery and not all of the coal was getting through. After 2 and a half hours we were removed by police. By that point they were 1 hour from initiating the shut down procedure which would have closed the plant for 48 hours. EON said that Ratcliffes production was unaffected The rest of the Grid was not disrupted and no hospitals were shut down.
This action was a completely rational and proportionate response to the threat of climate change.
We dont want to inconvenience the public but these massive sources of emissions must be stopped and we need to find another way if we are to have a hope of saving this planet from catastophe.There are so many better alternatives.
There is no place for coal in the 21st century.The government must stop building carbon intensive infrastructure and it must shut down the old, if not the people will. Personally I am very angered by the fact that those in power are not taking this problem seriously and think that people must start making the changes themselves.
Its simple to stop the planet from dying, we stop burning all fossil fuels NOW.
This action goes out to everyone who loves our earth and dares to dream of a future. Empower yourself to make a change in the best way you can.
Together we can do anything…
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There were five people locked on inside the power station, two locked on to the conveyor belt taking coal into the furnace and three to the machines that riddle the coal, just before the conveyor belt.
Both of these lock on points meant that no coal was allowed into the main power station operation. The effect that this had accurding to the workers who were with us is that several of the units went off line and the power station was running at a reduced capacity. If we had stayed there for another hour we would have shut down the whole plant.
We also stopped two trains from unloading coal and cost E-on a lot of money in railtrack/ train time as well as not selling as much electricity as they had declared and so failing to met contracts and therefore been fined