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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:11PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:11PM (#500752)

    The fact that the country went without coal for 24 hours proves little. People can do a lot in a day which is not long-term sustainable.

    As a case in point, "during a doctor's strike in which hospitals were only on minimal operations, the national death rate went down." One source, although there are others with less bias and more details for those who care to search. [cuny.edu] Clearly the natural conclusion is that doctors and hospitals are not needed...

    Well, actually, what happened is that nobody got surgery during the strike, so there was no cancer operations, no hip-replacement surgeries, and everything else which has the chance for complications. The simply got pushed out until after the strike.

    Likewise what happened when these coal power plants turned off. Did other power sources turn on and meet needs, did people reduce power consumption as a "environmental day of solidarity," did they import more, did people use alternative sources of energy (e.g. heating the house by wood rather than electricity), or something else?

    If it had been a month it would mean more, but one day means little. I guarantee you if the country as a whole really wanted to, they could go 24 hours with no running water, too.

  • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:38PM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:38PM (#500778)

    Good point: that was suspiciously close to Earth day.

    However, this is a sign that change is happening. First it is news to be off coal for a day, then it becomes routine.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:45PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:45PM (#500836)

    At least, it was a Friday, when people do work. The most recent US Green milestone was a Sunday morning...

    Let's flip it around to show why it matters: If anyone asked 5 years or 10 years ago about the UK running coal-free for 24 hours in 2017, would you have taken that bet, or laughed them out of the room?
    It's a pretty impressive achievement given how far they were from that, even if it relies on French nukes.