SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Britain has gone a week without burning any coal to make electricity - the first coal-free week since [...] the Industrial Revolution. [...] The world's first coal-fired power station was opened in London in 1882.
According to data, no coal has been used by power stations in Britain since around 1pm on 1 May. Instead, other sources of power have taken over, such as wind turbines, gas and nuclear power.
"We believe that, by 2025, we will be able to fully operate Great Britain's electricity system with zero carbon," said a spokesperson for the National Grid.
Time for British Prime Minister Theresa May to celebrate with more flights to Brussels?
Also at: Financial Times (Paywalled), Bloomberg, Ars Technica, and Fox News.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Britain Goes a Week Without Coal Power for the First Time in 137 Years
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 26 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
TOO BAD YOU CAN'T BUY a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin
real fast and freak everybody out.
-- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Thursday May 09 2019, @08:16PM
That's true, wind power seems to be picking up a lot of the slack. But as I stated, coal has only been at most 10% of their power generation. Cutting into that margin is not terribly hard and during luls in energy consumption the coal plants can stand down. But even if they were shutdown permenently, the co2 savings are insignificant when compared to, say, China's output. It's great they're doing this, but it's not a landmark achievement by any stretch.