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posted by mrpg on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the electrifying-news dept.

The energy provider, National Grid, on Twitter confirmed that, on April 21st, Britain went without coal-generated power for its first full day.

Environment watchers can mark off Friday, April 21. In a 24 hour period, confirmed National Grid, electricity demand in Great Britain was supplied without the need for coal generation—that is, without coal fired power stations.

Climate Action, which works in partnership with the United Nations Environment Program, said that, specifically, by 10.50 pm on Friday the UK had not required electricity sourced from coal.

Coal accounted for just 9% of electricity generation in 2016 - down from 23% the year before.

Coal-fired power plants emit almost double the amount of CO2 (a heat trapping gas blamed for global warming) as gas-fired power plants, said Reuters.

So, April 21 is a day to remember as no coal was used to generate electricity. Sources that kept the lights on included natural gas, nuclear, wind, biomass, and imported energy.

An attention-grabbing headline, but the bigger news may be the decline in coal-powered production from 23% of the total in 2015 to 9% of the total in 2016.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:09AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:09AM (#500595)

    Britain in any of the other 364 24-hour periods.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:36AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:36AM (#500601)

    True. It is also about the best time of year for it in Britain - fairly bright (solar), fairly windy (wind), recently rainy (hydro) - yet the temperatures are at a fairly comfortable level - not cold enough to need heating on, and not hot enough to crank up the AC or activate fans - and the days are getting longer so there is less need for artificial lighting. Show me the same thing at midwinter and I will be genuinely surprised, but as it is, this is mainly a publicity stunt.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @01:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @01:13PM (#500662)

      You are correct. This is probably a coincidence, and the mentioning of it as news is a publicity stunt.

      On the other hand, well made publicity stunts have been known to change public perception, from there on public opinion, and finally the state of nations ... that's usually called propaganda. Propaganda is known to work quite well (if it's well-executed), no matter the topic, organization, political system, or affected populace.

      If, for a change, somebody is now doing propaganda ops *in favour* of renewable energy, instead of going all "Global warming is a lie!", then I'm all for it! More please!

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday April 27 2017, @02:40PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday April 27 2017, @02:40PM (#500701) Journal

      Very roughly 50% of residential energy is used for mere heating and cooling. We could do a lot better. Most houses are incredibly poor at maintaining comfortable temperatures.

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday April 27 2017, @03:17PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Thursday April 27 2017, @03:17PM (#500722) Journal

    I had missed this:

    Of the 8.3% imports: 59.7% were from France, 36.8% were from the Netherlands, and 3.5% were from the Rep of Ireland.

    -- https://twitter.com/NGControlRoom/status/855707579401592832 [twitter.com]

    In 2014 coal accounted for a quarter of the total generation capacity in the Netherlands and for more than 40% of total power production.

    -- http://news.vattenfall.com/en/article/coal-be-phased-out-netherlands [vattenfall.com]

    In Ireland,

    The mix has changed, with substantially less coal and peat – the last of the turf-burning stations are being phased out – and far more natural gas.

    -- https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/ireland-s-energy-crisis-1.2111299 [irishtimes.com]