Any new coal-fired power station built in Britain must deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology on 400 megawatts of its output, the country's energy and climate minister Ed Miliband announced on 23 April. If the Environment Agency judges CCS to be technically and economically 'proven', it would have to be retrofitted to cover the full output of new plants (typically 1,000–2,000 megawatts) by 2025.

Miliband's speech followed the government's 22 April budget commitment to fund up to four CCS demonstrations. A levy raised from electricity suppliers — and ultimately consumers' bills — would raise the billions of pounds needed to support the projects, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said. A consultation this summer will firm up these plans.

The budget (see Nature 458, 1084; 2009) also committed Britain to a cut in greenhouse-gas emissions of 34% from 1990 levels by 2020, a milestone towards meeting the government's stated goal of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050.