MSPs signalled their opposition to a controversial new coal-fired power station in Ayrshire.

Parliament backed the Green Party by urging ministers to reject an application for a new plant at Hunterston in Ayrshire.

The 66-26 vote added to concerns that new carbon capture technology, which aims to remove environmentally-damaging CO2 emissions and pipe the gas underground, is not ready on a commercial scale.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie said: "This plant has been dogged by controversy from the start and ministers now face a possible judicial review if they try and force it through.

"Let's not waste everyone's time - I invite Peel Energy to accept the will of Parliament and withdraw their application.

"This project is going nowhere and if they proceed they will be wasting taxpayers' time and money as well as their own. The game is up for new coal plants in Scotland."

Ministers did not vote following advice that they cannot air opinions on the application while it is under consideration.

SNP backbenchers were split on the vote and 10 members abstained. Labour and the Liberal Democrats voted with the Greens while Conservatives opposed them.

The application, lodged on Monday, is the first in the UK for a coal-fired power station since rules forcing all new plants to be fitted with carbon capture technology were introduced last year.

Mr Harvie highlighted a research paper, published in the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, which he said left the technology "holed below the waterline".

The paper, by Christine Ehlig-Economides of Texas A&M University and Michael Economides of the University of Houston, stated: "Our very sobering conclusion is that underground carbon dioxide sequestration via bulk CO2 injection is not feasible at any cost."

They said use on a commercial scale would, in some cases, require an underground area the "size of a small US state".

Following the Holyrood vote, Labour energy spokesman Lewis Macdonald said: "Carbon capture and storage (CCS) offers huge potential for reducing harmful emissions in future but the technology has still to be proven at scale.

"Labour's Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, last week gave the go-ahead to take forward to the next stage the project to demonstrate that CCS can work on a large scale, both technically and commercially, at Longannet.

"Approving a new coal-fired power station before CCS is shown to work at scale could mean millions of tonnes of unabated new carbon emissions from Hunterston. That is why we voted against this proposal in the Scottish Parliament today."