UK Ends 142-Year Coal Power Era in Industry's Birthplace (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0175161241
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/30/1557210/uk-ends-142-year-coal-power-era-in-industrys-birthplace
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y35qz73n8o
> The UK is about to stop producing any electricity from burning coal -- [2]ending its 142-year reliance on the fossil fuel . The country's last coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, finishes operations on Monday after running since 1967. This marks a major milestone in the country's ambitions to reduce its contribution to climate change. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel producing the most greenhouse gases when burnt.
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> The UK was the birthplace of coal power, and from tomorrow it becomes the first major economy to give it up. The first coal-fired power station in the world, the Holborn Viaduct power station, was built in 1882 in London by the inventor Thomas Edison -- bringing light to the streets of the capital. In the early 1990s, coal began to be forced out of the electricity mix by gas, but coal still remained a crucial component of the UK grid for the next two decades. In 2012, it still generated 39% of the UK's power.
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> In 2010, renewables generated just 7% of the UK's power. By the first half of 2024, this had grown to more than 50% -- a new record. The rapid growth of green power meant that coal could even be switched off completely for short periods, with the first coal-free days in 2017.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~AmiMoJo
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y35qz73n8o
Sigh. (Score:3)
Only at least 42 years too late.
And still the majority of UK electricity is generated by CCGT (as a hint, the last two stand for "gas turbine").
Another 42 years before we get rid of that too?
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)
The UK's electricity sourced from CCGT is actually down to somewhere around 40% and usage is currently trending downwards, although at the current rate of decline we're still looking at around two decades before it is also phased out. Most of the UK's electricity now comes from renewables of one kind or another, but that does include nuclear and YMMV on just how "renewable" that is given Sellafield hasn't been doing any reprocessing for quite a while now. There's still a lot of work to be done, certainly, and we'll have to see how committed Labour is to the green agenda in this October's budget to get a feel for how that might go over the next few decades, but better late than never and this is still a big milestone that's been achieved.
Re: (Score:2)
If there weren't so many anti-nuclear environmentalists they could have almost entirely gotten rid of both decades ago as France did. I don't live there, so it's no skin off my back if the UK makes its grid less reliable or massively increases rates so they can switch to wind, but if I did live there I'd probably suggest not doing that.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)
The new Hinckley Point C station is due to open around 2030, 20 years after work on it started.
It will produce 3.2GW from two reactors.
For comparison, China installed 609GW of renewables in 2023, and nearly 30GWh of battery storage. In 1/20th of the time and doubtless a fraction of the cost per unit of energy.
I'm sure there's some excuse why we can't, but given they are installing renewable capacity 4000x faster than Hinckley is, even accounting for capacity factor and storage and anything else you can think of...
Oh and for reference demand at the moment in the UK is 37GW.
Re: Sigh. (Score:4, Insightful)
You honestly don't know why the cost is less in China? Safety rules and the fact that they won't be meaningfully held to account if a major disaster happens accounts for much of the difference. Profit motives and excessive red tape is another. (Noting the word excessive, hard to define)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
No, it's because renewables are just cheaper than nuclear everywhere in the world, including China.
If you are right then Chinese nuclear isn't burdened by all the safety requirements and regulations that the West has, and it's still more expensive.
Re: (Score:2)
What "major disaster" would you expect from a wide deployment of renewable energy?
Are the panels going to randomly catch fire? Are the wind turbines going to become detached from the tower and fly off like a propeller aircraft engine into an inconvenient nearby crowd of thousands of people?
What the hell are you even talking about?
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The question is, are safety rules so lax in China that it's 4000x cheaper and quicker, or is that just the nature of renewable energy vs nuclear?
We aren't seeing widespread mass failures of renewable energy systems in China. They would be visible on satellite photos, although we could just look on social media to see the videos. Like the ones of rockets exploding and buildings collapsing.
Hinkley Point C was actually pretty low on red tape. As the name suggests, the site already has two other nuclear power s
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Hinkley Point C was actually pretty low on red tape.
You say that but it's 2.5x the cost of France power and 5x the cost of South Korea.
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This. By raw death count, Greenpeace is more evil than nazis, commies, christianity and islam taken together. Electricity generation from coal kills a Hitler worth of people every less than 3 years with short-term air pollution alone (ie, ignoring global warming etc).
We already had Germany having a healthy base of non-polluting power generation. Instead, they switched to lignite, which is the dirtiest kind of coal.
Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
False dichotomy
So fucking BORING
Re: (Score:2)
Eh? I don't see any dichotomy, false or not, in what I wrote. Could you explain, please? Because I don't even see which sentence you're referring to.
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Everyone is cheering now, hooray! But when Margaret Thatcher did it she was vilified. Waiting for someone, anyone, to admit their error.
Arthur Scargill must be remembered as the climate destroyer he was.
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Incremental improvements are still improvements.
Why must everyone always make "better" to be the mortal enemy of "perfect" ?
You can have this, or you can have the coal. I prefer this.
RIP Brass Birmingham (Score:3)
had a good run as the #1 game
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The coal plants could live on though, by being converted to flywheels. They have done that in Ireland to help with grid stability where they have so much wind power.
Great days are ahead if this gets done in time. (Score:2)
I mean for the world. Kudos to UK for getting it done relatively soon compared to most.
Re: (Score:2)
> I mean for the world. Kudos to UK for getting it done relatively soon compared to most.
Easy, buddy. You're going off-message. There are no more good days ahead. We must have full buy-in in the belief that it's too late, lest other countries get pesky ideas that may impact short-term profit potential.
Re: Eagerly awaiting the reports of blackouts (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering they have just one coal plant operating right now and don't have those issues, what makes you think there will suddenly be a rash of issues?
Oh yeah, you didn't think it through. Just because they are shuttering coal does not mean other forms of energy from other sources of fossil fuels have been eliminated.
Re: (Score:3)
> Enjoy your extended irrelevancy. I'm sure the US will join you shortly, seeing as how our cars are shit, and now our planes are shit too.
If you haven't noticed, largely because of fossil fuels, the entire southern and eastern coasts of the US are turning into flooded shit. Not to mention that the west is turning into burnt shit. Do you have a solution to that other than the usual 5X over budget and behind schedule "Derp nukular!!!!" boondoggles?
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D-: Please identify the glaring logical fallacy in your statement and post your correction for partial credit.
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well, uh, where I live on the southeastern coast of the US we have no "flooded shit" yet. I am sure though that we will follow on in irrelevancy just as the UK appears to be doing. (according to the OP)
Re: (Score:3)
This isn't just regular stupid; this is advanced stupid. What a fucking moron.
Re:Eagerly awaiting the reports of blackouts (Score:4, Informative)
> The sun finally has set on the British Empire, and it's own people conspired to make it happen, by being bamboozled by the Leftists. Tell me in 20 years how that worked out.
This seems an odd comment from someone who I assume is American. There's not usually a lot of enthusiasm for the British Empire in the former colonies. Also why wait 20 years? The sun set more than half a century ago, so I'm not sure another 20 years will make much difference. From [1]wikipedia [wikipedia.org]'s rather good article:
> At first, British politicians believed it would be possible to maintain Britain's role as a world power at the head of a re-imagined Commonwealth, but by 1960 they were forced to recognise that there was an irresistible "wind of change" blowing. Their priorities changed to maintaining an extensive zone of British influence and ensuring that stable, non-Communist governments were established in former colonies. In this context, while other European powers such as France and Portugal waged costly and unsuccessful wars to keep their empires intact, Britain generally adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies, although violence occurred in Malaya, Kenya and Palestine. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to 5 million, 3 million of whom were in Hong Kong.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
Re:Eagerly awaiting the reports of blackouts (Score:4, Informative)
The death knell for the UK was Brexit, which was a right wing project, and botched by a Conservative government.
Re: Eagerly awaiting the reports of blackouts (Score:4, Informative)
Brexit was a Russian project.
Re: (Score:2)
> The sun set more than half a century ago
In many senses this is true, but Randall Munroe wrote a little piece on [1]a sense in which it isn't [xkcd.com].
[1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/
Re: (Score:2)
How?
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> Folly.
When the winds stop blowing over Blighty and the Sun stops shining over it consistently (it has been inconsistent at that for Centuries), them Proles be screwed.
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Yes because the Sun always shines in the UK during the year . . . my good man, have you been to the UK? The do not rely largely on solar for a reason.
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Wel, fool, are you being paid to post crap like this, or are you stupid enough to do it for free?
And, actually, yes, after we went to Worldcon in Glasgow last month, we took the train around the UK, and in both Scotland and England, we saw a *lot* of rooftop solar, and four? five? more? solar fields.
Re: (Score:2)
On a slightly different bent....
I can't tell from the photo...is this the same plant with the stacks as was shot for the Pink Floyd Animal's cover?
Re: Folly. (Score:2)
No, the Floyd photo is Battersea Power Station. It now has a London Underground station -- Battersea Power Station Station.
Re: (Score:2)
What if they start generating energy from the fog?
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well, then they will be able to sell energy to Germany.
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Scotland does generate about 10% of its electricity from rain (hydroelectric).
Re: (Score:2)
where I have been in the UK, Wales, Cornwall, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Fleet, etc. it seems like the wind is always blowing pretty consistently. Sunshine though? Not so much, though I will say the first time i ever experienced 30 degrees in May, was in Plymouth once back around 2004.