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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

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

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 [techxplore.com] generation—that is, without coal fired power stations [techxplore.com].

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 [climateactionprogramme.org] before.

Coal-fired power [techxplore.com] plants emit almost double the amount of CO2 (a heat trapping gas blamed for global warming [reuters.com]) 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 [techxplore.com], 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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