Originally published at: UK ends coal power generation today after 142 years - Boing Boing
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And we can tow Nigel Farage offshore to power those wind farms on calm days.
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That’s a completely renewable resource, too!
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Once again, what the fossil fuel industry and their pet conservative politicians spent decades telling everyone was “impossible” turns out to be possible after all.
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Fabulous!!
Not quite so fabulous, check out the natural gas parts of the graphs.
Apparently the smaller gas power stations are much easier to get built than nuclear or renewables, so that’s what the UK is going with.
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Agreed. It is a step, but not yet the destination. At least gas is the lowest carbon per unit energy type of fossil fuel.
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I assume, as per predictions by the fossil fuel industry, that the entire UK population will be plunged into darkness, have no heat, starve, and be unable to drive anywhere, face total economic destruction, and all become unemployed.
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There was a documentary on TV recently about the coal smog in London in 1952…10,000 fatalities. A high-pressure system over the city for 5 days meant the smog (and the fog) was stuck there.
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hybrid generation using gas and wind power
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Paul Robeson and Scottish coal miners!
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He also sang for Welsh miners, over the phone because his passport was taken.
I am bound by certain obligations to include this. 
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This is also the week the UK stops burning coke to produce pig iron in blast furnaces. The Newport plant is being shuttered to replace the current pair of furnaces with electric arcs using scrap metal.
The UK is the only major economy now not able to make virgin steel and will be wholly reliant on imports.
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Don’t you mean the Port Talbot steelworks?
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My work is in renewable energy, and I feel like this is a least-worst politically-achievable result. I say this as someone who watched in dismay as the Australian Greens scuttled a not-great emissions plan, and unintentionally gave enormous political momentum to the coal-loving conservatives and set Australia’s energy transition back a decade.
Another nice thing about gas is it tends to be a lot of smaller plants rather than one big one like coal or nukes. So it’s easier to pop them off one by one with e.g. battery installations.
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I feel like any discussion of power generation in the UK must include the Electric Mountain which can provide peak load in 16 seconds. I’d love to do the tour but i have visited the former slate quarry where it’s located (the second largest in the world during operation) and the scale of this decaying industrial landscape is mind boggling.
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Man, I love me some pumped hydro. With the understanding that it’s far from perfect, it’s still a very very least-worst choice.
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of all countries, its the UK. extremly embarrasing to see a german company trying to delay this outcome for years in the uk and seeing germany clinging to coal til at least 2035.
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Research published in 2004 suggests that the number of fatalities was about 12,000, around three to four times greater than the official government total at the time, but very close to the figure Wilkins had originally estimated
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