Britain closes last coal-fired power station

Issued on: 18.09.2024 – 07:34Changed: 18.09.2024 – 07:33

4 minutes

At the main train station, which serves the nearby East Midlands Airport, the huge cooling towers rise up from the tracks and platform, seemingly within reach.

But at the end of this month, the site in central England will close its doors, marking the end of environmentally harmful coal-fired power generation in the UK – a milestone for a G7 country.

“It will seem very strange because it has always been there,” says David Reynolds, a 74-year-old retiree who witnessed the construction of the plant as a child before it began operations in 1967.

“When I was younger, you could go down to certain parts and see nothing but coal mines,” he told AFP.

Energy transition

Coal has played a crucial role in British economic history: it powered the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, which turned the country into a global superpower, and was responsible for London's infamous choking smog.

Even until the 1980s, its share of the country's electricity mix was still 70 percent, before declining in the 1990s.

In the last decade, the decline was even greater: in 2013 it fell to 38 percent, in 2018 to 5.0 percent and last year to just 1.0 percent.

In 2015, the then Conservative government announced that it wanted to close all coal-fired power stations by 2025 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank, described the UK’s 2030 clean energy target as “very ambitious”.

However, she added: “It sends a very strong message that the UK cares deeply about climate change and that this is just the first step.”

According to electricity operator National Grid ESO, last year a third of British electricity production was covered by natural gas, a quarter came from wind power and 13 percent from nuclear energy.

“Britain’s rapid exit from coal was largely due to a combination of economic measures and regulations,” said Ralston.

“Regulations were put in place for larger power plants like coal-fired plants because they emit so much sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and all the other emissions, and that meant it was no longer economically attractive to invest in those types of power plants.”

Following its election victory in July, the new Labour government unveiled its most important green energy plan, including the creation of a government-owned corporation to invest in offshore wind, tidal power and nuclear energy.

The aim is to make Britain a superpower again, this time in the field of clean energy.

Therefore, the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar on 30 September is a symbolic step towards achieving the UK's goal of decarbonising electricity generation by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

This would make the country the first in the G7 of rich nations to completely abandon coal-fired power.

Italy plans to do this by next year, France by 2027, Canada by 2030 and Germany by 2038. There are no fixed dates yet for Japan and the USA.

“The end of an era”

In recent years, Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, which has the potential to power two million homes, has only been used when large peaks in electricity demand were expected, such as during a cold spell in 2022 or the heatwave in 2023.

Its last delivery of 1,650 tons of coal earlier this summer was barely enough to power 500,000 homes for eight hours.

“It’s like the end of an era,” said Becky, 25, who serves £4 pints behind the bar at the Red Lion pub in nearby Kegworth.

Her father works at the power plant and will lose his job. September 30th is likely to evoke strong emotions for him and the other 350 remaining employees.

“It’s her life,” she said.

Nothing remains of the world's first coal-fired power station, which Thomas Edison had built in central London in 1882, three years after his invention of the light bulb.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar faces the same fate: the site's German owner, Uniper, announced that the site would be completely demolished “by the end of the decade”.

It will be replaced by a new development – ​​a “carbon-free technology and energy center,” according to the company.

© 2024 AFP