U.K. coal-fired power plants must be given a deadline to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground, or government energy policy will be environmentally ``catastrophic,'' a multiparty committee of lawmakers said.

While some new generators are required to be ``carbon capture and storage-ready,'' or built to allow so-called CCS technology to be installed later, there's no guarantee the equipment will be fitted, the Environmental Audit Committee said today in an e-mailed report. That poses a risk that output of the gas blamed for global warming will rise, the group said.

Energy policy ``is used as a sort of fig leaf behind which the development of new coal-fired power stations can take place,'' committee chairman Tim Yeo, a Conservative Party lawmaker, said yesterday in a telephone interview. ``We think environmentally that is catastrophic.''

The U.K. has said investment in coal, the most polluting fuel in terms of greenhouse gases, may be needed to provide for Britain's future power needs. The committee carried out its enquiry following a proposal by Dusseldorf, Germany-based E.ON AG to build a coal-fed plant in Kingsnorth, Kent. That project shouldn't be given the go-ahead without a condition that CCS is installed by a set date, Yeo and the U.K.'s national science academy, the Royal Society, said.

``If we are to have coal, it is essential that it is as `clean' as possible,'' Royal Society President Martin Rees said in an e-mailed statement. ``Consent must only be given for new coal-fired power stations on condition that operating permits are withdrawn if the plant fails to capture 90 percent of its carbon-dioxide emissions by 2020.''

E.ON's U.K. unit didn't immediately reply to requests for comment. Kingsnorth has been entered into a competition for government funding to prove CCS can be commercially viable.

Carbon Trading

Adding coal plants won't increase U.K. emissions because of CO2 caps set under the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said in an e-mailed statement. Under the carbon trading rules, businesses are prescribed emissions limits, and if they exceed them they must buy credits from companies that have undershot theirs.

``The EU ETS caps the electricity generation industry's emissions across Europe so any new coal-fired capacity would not add anything to total carbon emissions,'' Wicks said. ``Coal is and will remain a vital part of the global energy mix and this will be the case for many years to come.''

Yeo said that the price of carbon credits won't be enough of an incentive for power generators to reduce emissions by installing CCS, and that deadlines will be crucial.

`Scandalous'

``The fact that the government is even contemplating allowing Kingsnorth to go ahead before there's even a deadline for fitting CCS technology is absolutely scandalous,'' Yeo said. ``There needs to be a clear date beyond which coal-fired power stations will not be allowed to operate unless CCS which achieves certain specified reduction targets for emissions is fitted.''

The committee said progress in developing the technology has been ``regrettably slow,'' and criticized the government's limitation of the CCS competition to projects dealing with coal- fired plants and using a technique known as post-combustion, which catches emissions after the fuel has been burned.

``We feel it would aid the development of CCS if the government were to extend its support to a program of demonstration projects, including pre-combustion technology,'' the committee wrote. ``Furthermore, the government must view its competition as only one part of a wider strategy; it must continue to support other CCS projects.''