See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/08/carboncapturestorage.fossilfuels

Without meaning to sound crass, we desperately need to build coal fired power plants in the UK.

My starting point for this conclusion is that all the fossil fuels in the world are going to be burnt, any government interference (e.g. cap n trade) is simply going to delay the burning by a few years, until fossil fuel resources are so rare and so well-guarded that the illegal and informal (at best) and every other energy company (at worst) can no longer get their hands on them.

The only alternative is nuclear, but there will be fights if not wars over plutonium and uranium resources in the coming decades and centuries.

By building coal stations, we can use our own resources and secure our own energy supplies, at least in the short to medium future. At the same time, we can experiment with CCS.