Longannet power plant to shut next year

May 2015

The giant coal-fired power station, Longannet, on the Firth of Forth in Scotland, UK, is to close by March 2016. Built in 1973 and now inefficient, Longannet is alone responsible for nearly a fifth of Scotland’s total climate emissions, releasing 9.5 million tonnes of CO2 in 2013. Last year, Longannet was ranked as the 21st biggest CO2 polluter in the EU.

Gina Hanrahan, climate and energy policy officer at WWF Scotland, said: “While Longannet has served Scotland well for over 40 years, it is Scotland’s single biggest source of climate emissions and a combination of EU air pollution rules, carbon pricing and factors such as transmission charging have made the aging plant’s closure inevitable.”

Source: The Guardian, 23 March 2015

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