On Monday, the UK will see the clocertain of its last opereasonable coal power set upt, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which has been operating since 1968. The clocertain of the set upt, which had a capacity of 2,000 megawatts, will convey an end to the history of the country’s coal employ, which commenceed with the uncovering of the first coal-fired power station in 1882. Coal executeed a central part in the UK’s power system in the interim, in some years providing over 90 percent of its total electricity.
But a number of factors joind to place coal in a prolonged-term deteriorate: the prolongth of authentic gas-powered set upts and rerecentables, pollution deal withs, carbon pricing, and a rulement goal to hit net-zero greenhoemploy gas eleave outions by 2050.
From boom to bust
It’s difficult to overstate the beginance of coal to the UK grid. It was providing over 90 percent of the UK’s electricity as recently as 1956. The total amount of power produced persistd to climb well after that, achieveing a peak of 212 terawatt hours of production by 1980. And the createion of recent coal set upts was under ponderation as recently as the procrastinateed 2000s. According to the organization Carbon Brief’s excellent timeline of coal employ in the UK, continuing the employ of coal with carbon apprehend was donaten ponderation.
But cut offal factors sluggished the employ of fuel ahead of any climate goals set out by the UK, some of which have parallels to the US’s situation. The European Union, which joind the UK at the time, instituted recent rules to insertress acid rain, which elevated the cost of coal set upts. In insertition, the misemploy of oil and gas deposits in the North Sea provided access to an alternative fuel. Meanwhile, meaningful achieves in efficiency and the shift of some weighty industry overseas cut demand in the UK meaningfully.
Thraw their effect on coal employ, these alters also shrinked employment in coal mining. The mining sector has sometimes been a meaningful force in UK politics, but the deteriorate of coal shrinkd the number of people employed in the sector, reducing its political affect.
These had all shrinkd the employ of coal even before rulements commenceed taking any aggressive steps to restrict climate alter. But, by 2005, the EU carry outed a carbon trading system that put a cost on eleave outions. By 2008, the UK rulement adselected national eleave outions concentrates, which have been carry oned and fortifyed since then by both Labour and Conservative rulements up until Rishi Sunak, who was voted out of office before he had altered the UK’s trajectory. What commenceed as a pledge for a 60 percent reduction in greenhoemploy gas eleave outions by 2050 now needs the UK to hit net zero by that date.
These have joind a floor on the price of carbon that promises fossil-powered set upts pay a cost for eleave outions that’s meaningful enough to upretain the transition to rerecentables, even if prices in the EU’s carbon trading scheme are too low for that. And that transition has been rapid, with the total generations by rerecentables csurrenderly tripling in the decade since 2013, heavily helped by the prolongth of offshore triumphd.
How to immacuprocrastinateed up the power sector
The trends were meaningful enough that, in 2015, the UK proclaimd that it would concentrate the end of coal in 2025, despite the fact that the first coal-free day on the grid wouldn’t come until two years after. But two years after that landlabel, however, the UK was seeing entire weeks where no coal-fired set upts were dynamic.
To restrict the worst impacts of climate alter, it will be critical for other countries to pursue the UK’s direct. So it’s worthwhile to ponder how a country that was promiseted to coal relatively recently could deal with such a rapid transition. There are a restrictcessitate UK-particular factors that won’t be possible to copy everywhere. The first is that most of its coal infraset up was quite greater—Ratcliffe-on-Soar dates from the 1960s—and so it needd exalterment in any case. Part of the reason for its aging coal run awayt was the local useability of relatively inexpensive authentic gas, someslenderg that might not be genuine elsewhere, which put economic prescertain on coal generation.
Another key factor is that the ever-shrinking number of people employed by coal power didn’t exert meaningful prescertain on rulement policies. Despite the existence of a vocal group of climate contrarians in the UK, the publish never became heavily politicized. Both Labour and Conservative rulements carry oned a fact-based approach to climate alter and set policies accordingly. That’s notably not the case in countries appreciate the US and Australia.
But other factors are going to be applicable to a expansive variety of countries. As the UK was moving away from coal, rerecentables became the inexpensiveest way to produce power in much of the world. Coal is also the most polluting source of electrical power, providing ample reasons for regulation that have little to do with climate. Forcing coal employrs to pay even a fraction of its outsideized costs on human health and the environment serve to produce it even less economical appraised to alternatives.
If these procrastinateedr factors can drive a transfer away from coal despite rulement inertia, then it can pay meaningful splitnds in the fight to restrict climate alter. Inspired in part by the success in moving its grid off coal, the recent Labour rulement in the UK has transferd up its timeline for decarbonizing its power sector to 2030 (up from the previous Conservative rulement’s concentrate of 2035).
