Forget about the nuclear renaissance. Old King Coal is back. Drax, Europe's biggest coal-fired station, has just floated on the stock market, International Power is extending the life of its one UK coal plant and now E.ON of Germany has unveiled plans to build the first new coal-fired station in Britain for 30 years.

Coal was supposed to be the forgotten fuel, the dirty man of Europe, fit only for meeting the electricity needs of the developing world, where the stuff is plentiful and economic self-improvement still takes precedence over the trashing of the environment.

In fact, the picture is nowhere near that straightforward. Coal still accounts for 40 per cent of the UK's electricity generating capacity and the proportion of the country's energy needs being met by coal is actually rising. That is one of the reasons why our carbon dioxide emissions are going up and not down and why Britain is currently missing its global warming targets by a country mile.

Coal is cheap and in abundant supply compared with gas and the stations which run on it have long since paid for themselves. So, in the short- term at least, making maximum use of coal-fired capacity is a no-brainer.

That will not always be the case. The new generation of coal- fired plants being studied by E.ON will be far more expensive than their predecessors, new gas-fired stations and even onshore wind farms. The 450 megawatt station the company is thinking of building " probably at Killingholme near to the east coast " would cost pounds 550m. It will have to be built with 'carbon capture' in mind. That means either using oxyfuel technology " burning the coal in pure oxygen so it produces virtually no sulphur " and then pumping the CO2 into nearby North Sea gas reservoirs. Or it means fitting costly scrubbing equipment to the station to remove both the sulphur and the carbon.

In order to make such clean coal plants a reality, the Government will have to put its hand in its pocket " either to provide capital grants or to devise a mechanism allowing generators to sell this carbon-free electricity at a premium. In other words, something akin to the renewables obligation which underpins green energy and the levy which will be needed to make a new generation of nuclear reactors financially viable.

Where there is a will, there is often a way, however, so all the talk about clean coal electricity generation might about to become a reality. It is only a shame that a decade after Old King Coal himself, Richard Budge, began banging the drum for the technology as a way of keeping the pits open, both the fuel and the expertise will come from abroad.