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.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:09AM
So? I can do nicely without food for 24 hours. Is there a point to this story?
Damn I'm hungry.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:18AM (3 children)
So how much of the imported energy they used was made from coal?
(Score: 5, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:49AM (2 children)
In France, coal power plants provided just 2% of total electricity in 2014.
[...]
France will have just 3,018 MW of capacity remaining online in mainland France after 2015. This will be just 5 coal power units, spread across 4 plants.
-- https://www.e3g.org/library/snapshot-of-france-coal-phase-out-progress [e3g.org]
France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023 [...] The country [...] derives more than 75 per cent of its electricity from nuclear fission.
-- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-close-coal-plants-shut-down-2023-global-warming-climate-change-a7422966.html [independent.co.uk]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @02:21PM (1 child)
And what about the Netherlands?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday April 28 2017, @12:32AM
Good question, and I had an answer but I posted in the wrong place:
/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=19210&page=1&cid=500722#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Three new coal plants opened in the Netherlands around 2014 or 2015. The plants in the UK are older.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:31AM
"Britain Does Without Coal Power, Briefly" [soylentnews.org]
Last May, all the coal-burning stations were shut down for what may have been the first time since 1882. E.ON made up the difference, at ruinous expense.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:37AM
Though you may call 999
They will hang up everytime
It's too late they're here with me
(Score: 3, Interesting) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Thursday April 27 2017, @09:34AM (3 children)
Good to hear the UK is getting off of coal.
And in the US, despite the Trump drum-beating for the coal industry, natural gas has overtaken coal as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Electrical_Generation_1949-2011.png [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:19AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:02PM (1 child)
Not so sure that's much to brag about.
Natural Gas is not that much better environmentally than Coal. It is certainly no more sustainable, and its CO2 output, while lower at the smoke stack than coal, comes with Methane leakage at the well sites and pipeline. Hydraulic fracturing leakage which combined, actually exceeds the total effect of coal. Porter Ranch was worse then Deep Water Horizon.
The good news here is that most of British Coal plants are old and creaking environmental disasters, and should have been taken off line decades ago as was promised when the government was building Nuclear power stations.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 27 2017, @09:42PM
Porter Ranch was worse then Deep Water Horizon.
Most people would consider the one that killed 11 people to be worse....
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:09AM (4 children)
Britain in any of the other 364 24-hour periods.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:36AM (2 children)
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
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
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
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]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:11PM (2 children)
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
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
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.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday April 27 2017, @10:44PM
What evil watermelons like "Climate Action" won't tell you is the important part of the story. The mainstream media does most of its #FakeNews by quoting people with agendas like these guys and leave out the inconvenient truths. Yes alternate energy can 'work', that was never disputed so is merely a strawman. Look at this chart [ovoenergy.com] and notice that all of the expensive countries are the most invested in green energy. I'm paying about $0.105/KWH in the Southern US while the Blue areas of the U.S. pay $0.20 or more like the UK. Green energy makes the economy suck as everything that uses energy costs more. Global recession that just won't let up got you down? Well now you know one of the big reasons the media will -never- even hint at.
So celebrate away, enjoy throwing resources down a rathole to make greens feel superior to you, just know that there will never be 'green enough' until you die. They won't lead the way and kill themselves of course, they want YOU dead, then they will decide that the Earth can support them and they don't really have to go.