MPs have voted to reject an amendment to the Energy Bill introduced by the Lords to limit emissions from old coal-fired power stations.

Under the proposed change the plants would have been subject to Emissions Performance Standards – which will apply to any new build power stations – unless they used Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

As CCS is currently both expensive and untested on a large scale, the amendment would probably have meant early closure for the plants.

Energy Minister Michael Fallon said the amendment would lead to plants being closed without any replacements, making the UK’s energy supply less secure and more expensive, the BBC reported.

He said: “We estimate that if coal disappears by 2025 there will be an increase in our domestic bills of around 3 – 4% – that’s around £22 to £28.”

A spokesman for the trade association UK Coal said: “We are pleased with the decision of Parliament to reject the Lord’s amendment. This was a vote for common sense which will help keep energy bills as low as possible as coal remains by far the cheapest element of energy mix.

“Coal continues to account for 40% of electricity generation in the UK today”

Environmental campaigners, however, were disappointed with the vote.

Greenpeace Policy Director Doug Parr said: “By voting through a loophole in the Energy Bill allowing unabated coal burning in the UK for an extra decade, it has damaged efforts to cut pollution, jeopardised investment in lower carbon energy and ignored the 1,600 premature deaths brought about each year from coal burning.”

“Phasing out coal is the most cost effective way to meet our carbon reduction goals.”

The bill is at a stage known as ‘ping pong’ and with the amendment defeated in the House of Commons it will now return to the House of Lords.  Peers will have to decide whether to accept the defeat or reinsert the amendment.

Each year air pollution from burning coal leads to the early deaths of 1,600 Brits.

That’s according to a new report released by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), which said every 12 months coal-fired plants were responsible for around 360,000 extra sick days and more than a million cases of lower respiratory symptoms in the UK.

HEAL said the yearly cost to Britain was £1.1 billion to £3.1 billion.

The report has been released ahead of tomorrow’s debate in the Commons on whether a House of Lords amendment to the energy bill – setting emissions targets for old coal-fired plants – should be upheld.

Genon Jensen, Executive Director at HEAL said: “The time is now ripe to bring the health facts and figures into national debates and cost assessments. Wednesday’s vote in the UK offers a unique opportunity to cash in huge health co-benefits.”

Andrew Mackintosh, Communications Director for UK Coal described HEAL as an anti-coal lobbying organisation and said the report was biased attempt at scaremongering that selectively quoted scientific evidence.

He said: “The report highlights poor air quality in Europe’s urban areas but this has little to do with emissions from coal,” and added “It is odd that these lobbyists have targeted coal-fired power stations when over 95% of the estimated impacts are due to emissions from other sources, such as transport.”

Russia is to convert a major power plant from coal to gas, thanks to a seven-year loan worth 12 billion roubles (£0.2bn) provided by a London-based bank.

The cash will be used for the construction of a 420MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power unit at the Verkhnetagilskaya thermal power plant (pictured) owned by Inter RAO.

Once completed, coal-fired capacity of 264MW will be decommissioned by 2015 and another 288MW of capacity by the end of 2017. That is expected to cut carbon emissions by 1.6 million tons a year – equivalent to the annual pollution caused by 800,000 cars in Europe.

The project is part of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) strategy to encourage industry to switch away from using carbon fuels to generate electricity.

Riccardo Puliti, the EBRD’s Managing Director for Energy and Natural Resources said: “This is another major step in the EBRD’s strategy to support the modernisation and de-carbonisation of electricity generation.”

The new unit will have to meet the Bank’s Performance Requirements and EU environmental standards, including the EU Industrial Emissions Directive.

Householders in Poland’s southern city of Krakow have been banned from heating their homes with coal and wood, reports claim.

The Malopolska regional council voted for the complete withdrawal of the use of fossil fuels in a bid to cut air pollution.

Overall, 22 Malopolska councillors voted in favour of the ban – with 11 voting against, it has been reported. The ban is expected to come into full force in five years.

Local deputy speaker Wojciech Kozak has been reported as saying: “This resolution is a precedent on a national scale, it will introduce many changes in Poland and the region.”

According to a European Environment Agency report earlier this year, Krakow is the third most polluted European city. Around 50% of Krakow’s winter air pollution is said to come from domestic stoves, 30% from traffic and 20% from power plants.

Last week the UK Government said Britain will join the US in agreeing to end support for public financing of new coal-fired power stations abroad.

Healthy supplies of gas kept prices in the near future or “near term” low last week, according to the latest market report with npower.

Ben Spry, Optimisation Service Desk Manager at npower said this was the result of “high LNG flows and good flows from Norway”, on top of a stronger pound versus the euro, as well as a “healthy supply outlook” going into December because of milder weather forecasts last week.

Despite varying amounts of wind output, the power system remained comfortable, with peak margins around 10GW, meaning near term power contracts headed lower as well.

Mr Spry said there was “limited price movement” in the market with falls in near curve, coal and carbon prices offset somewhat by a stronger price for Brent crude oil, which rallied late in the week.

Brent oil – which is used as a benchmark for oil prices – hit $111 per barrel as the deal between Iran and the West over Iran’s nuclear capabilities “looked less likely as we reached Friday”, said Mr Spry, adding that “simmering tensions” in Libya seemed likely to limit oil output.

Looking ahead Mr Spry predicted temperatures would once again dictate the mood of the market, with forecasters anticipating a colder December than usual. He said despite a healthy supply outlook, prompt and near term gas prices would be pushed higher.

LNG would be key to the gas market, he added, with three more tankers set to “buoy” the UK’s stock levels but “attractive Asian prices casting doubts on how long supply will last.”

Peak power margins would be a lot tighter if the cold continued, he said, with wind output key to short term prices.

Mr Spry expected prices for Brent crude to remain volatile “as the market weighs up the true impact of that deal struck between Iran and the West.”

He told people to watch out for developments in the US, where questions remain over if and when the Federal Reserve will taper off quantitative easing.

Eggborough power station has now been powering British homes for more than a million hours.

Building began on the coal-fired power station in early 1962 and it started generating power in February 1967. Since then it’s supplied enough energy to power the whole of the UK for a year.

It now provides around 4% of the Britain’s total supply – keeping the lights on in two to three million homes.

One of the country’s largest coal-burning plants, Eggborough recently announced it is now in line to be converted to biomass.

Its owner Eggborough Power claimed the station could eventually meet 10% of the UK’s target to generate a third of its electricity from renewables by 2020.

As much as £500 million will be invested in the switchover. The firm said it will safeguard 800 jobs and directly create 800 more.

Neil O’Hara, Chief Executive of Eggborough Power said: “This landmark has been reached as we embark on a new, sustainable future for Eggborough. Our biomass conversion project plans to transform ageing infrastructure into a major renewable energy power house, extending the life of the facility, securing hundreds of existing jobs onsite and creating thousands more across the region.”

The Energy Secretary Ed Davey has said Britain will join the US in agreeing to end support for public financing of new coal-fired power stations abroad.

Mr Davey made the announcement at the UN’s climate change conference in Warsaw.

He said: “It is completely illogical for countries like the UK and the US to be decarbonising our own energy sectors while paying for coal-fired power plants to be built in other countries.

“It undermines global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change and stores up a future financial time bomb for those countries who would have to undo their reliance on coal-fired generation in the decades ahead, as we are having to do today.”

He said exceptions should be made in some cases – for the very poorest countries where there are no alternatives and to take account of new technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage.

But he added: “Developing countries will soon find solar and similar energy technologies will become cheaper not just cleaner.”

The US and Britain will now work together to drum up support for the policy from other countries and multilateral development banks.

Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner, Asad Rehman said: “Ending support for new overseas coal-fired power stations is certainly a welcome step but if the Coalition really wants to show climate leadership it must pull the plug on its backing for more gas and oil at home.

A large American energy company is to close eight of its coal-fired power plants – taking 3GW of coal capacity offline.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) which provides power to around 9 million people in the south east of the country said the move was in response to “changing economic and regulatory conditions”.

It said it faced “lower power demand, a slow economy, uncertainty in commodity pricing and tougher environmental requirements, particularly on air emissions.”

Among the stations to retire are two of three units at the Paradise Fossil Plant in Kentucky, which will be replaced by a new gas-fired plant. TVA said it plans to invest $1 billion (£620m) in the changeover.

The lone remaining unit, one of TVA’s largest coal-fired generators, will be left in place.

The new plan will eventually give hydroelectric and renewable power a 20% share of TVA’s generation. Coal will make up another fifth, as will gas-fired generation. The remaining 40% will come from nuclear.

TVA President and CEO, Bill Johnson said: “These were difficult recommendations to make as they directly impact our employees and communities.

“But the plan is what’s best in terms of its positive impact on TVA’s rates, debt and the environment – and it will bring the greatest benefit to the people of the Valley.”

Britain should import less coal and make better use of our “national treasure” according to Kevin McCullough (pictured, right), Chief Executive of UK Coal.

Mr McCullough said: “We rely on 40% of electricity generated from coal today yet indigenous supplies of coal amount to about 5% or 6%. We import a hell of a lot of coal.”

Speaking on the Building More panel at Energy Live 2013 last week he said: “Whilst we are investing in some clean technology for our current fleet in the UK, our near neighbours in Europe are actually building brand new state of the art coal plants today.”

The UK Coal boss said the new plants had a thermal efficiency of around 50%, which was “much, much higher” than the plants Britain is still using.

While he believed in decarbonisation, Mr McCullough claimed “the pace at which we are trying to race ahead of our EU and local colleagues is frankly ridiculous. It’s putting us in a perilous situation.”

Sara Vaughan (pictured, left), Director of Strategy and Regulation for E.ON said the firm was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on its Ratcliffe coal-fired station “to make it cleaner in terms of sulphur and nitrous oxide.”

She said: “We absolutely believe coal is part of the future.”

According to Mrs Vaughan coal use is being held back by environmental policy: “The real problem we have with coal in the UK at the moment is something called the Carbon Price Floor.”

She said the carbon tax was “exporting emisions”.

Shale gas is “saving the planet from coal” as the latter has a greater environmental impact, according to US fracking expert Chris Faulkner (pictured).

In an interview after his appearance at Energy Live 2013, the founder and CEO of Breitling Energy Companies told ELN the US has raised natural gas production by 40% and at the same time greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 20%.

He believes the environmentalists who are against fracking don’t want natural gas not because of the controversial process of extracting shale gas but because “they’re scared natural gas will slow down development of renewable energy”.

He added: “They have some concern there because natural gas is a bridge fuel, it’s clean, it works. It’s here today and there’s an abundance of it whereas renewables don’t work, they’ve been subsidised for 20 years, they’re very, very expensive and they have a long way to go.”

When asked about the risks of fracking and concerns around contamination of water, Mr Faulker said “there’s a risk in everything” and went on to refer to the Fukushima disaster and even solar panels releasing the toxic chemicals that make up the PV sensors.

He insisted the process of extracting shale gas is “not flawed, it’s safe” and that it’s “not by sheer luck we’ve fracked a million and a half wells in the US and haven’t contaminated the drinking water. It’s because of the fact that we take precaution”.

Mr Faulkner added: “I think what fracking will allow us to do is it would bridge into the future. Now how far that bridge may be – it could be 40-50 years or beyond. The reality is that in the Bowland basin there’s 1,300 tcf (trillion cubic feet) worth of gas. If I can extract 10% of that and the British Geological Survey says the same thing, we can power the UK for 50 years.

“I think that alone is enough incentive to say we need to investigate this and figure out if it’s true and if we can do it because at the end of the day energy security has to be part of the conversation, especially for elected officials.”

He said that although the UK won’t see the same “explosion” of natural gas as seen in the US, “it doesn’t have to” but that if it can happen “at a fraction”, the nation would be in a “much better position”.