Lord Stern of Brentford, the economist who worked out that not doing anything to stop climate change would work out more expensive than living with it has now joined the not-so-exclusive club of people who think Kingsnorth and new coal is a bad idea.

"We shouldn't go ahead because coal is so polluting and we need very strong examples of how to move forward with our electricity supply in a way that doesn't use coal... without carbon capture and storage," Lord Stern said.

There are other ways we can handle the interim," he said. "The fastest way is to put up a gas-fired power station. That is emitting, but much less so than coal. We've got to build up solar and wind."

So there you have it - yet another nail in the coffin for Kingsnorth (we're beginning to run out of space).