From 13:24 on Wednesday 1 May to 13:24 on Wednesday 8 May, the United Kingdom (UK) made history with its first ever coal-free week in a century! This news is mind blowing considering that it is, after all, the birthplace of coal power. The country was home to the world’s first coal-fueled power plant in the 1880s, and coal has been its dominant electric source and a major economic driver ever since.
The majority of the slack was taken up by burning natural gas instead. It is true that the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is still produced when natural gas and biomass are burnt, but it’s half as much as coal.
Britain hasn’t gone this long without electricity from coal-fired stations since its 19th-century industrial revolution. The last record coal break occurred one month prior to the week-long record, with a coal-free period of only 90 hours. And they intend to keep breaking records from here on out, beginning with plans to wean itself completely off coal-fired power generation by 2025 as part of the efforts to meet its climate target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent compared with 1990 levels in the next three decades.
Back in the 1950s they already knew that coal power plants were bad for air quality and gas-fired power plants were moved out of big cities to reduce air pollution. Coal plants emit almost double the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) – a heat-trapping gas blamed for global warming. In addition, low power prices and levies on CO2 emissions have also made it increasingly unprofitable to run coal plants. Now even more so with wind and solar power production being so high.
The UK’s power transmission network, The National Grid, said coal-free runs like the one this week would become a regular occurrence as more renewable energy entered the system. Quite an amazing thing figuring that “just a few years ago we were told Britain couldn’t possibly keep the lights on without burning coal,” said Doug Parr, policy director at environmental activist group Greenpeace. “Now coal is quickly becoming an irrelevance, much to the benefit of our climate and air quality, and we barely notice it,” he added.
The UK’s independent climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, has even recommended that the country deepen its climate target even further to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. However, this would require even more renewable electricity production, as well as an earlier phase-out of new petrol and diesel cars, and lifestyle changes such as lower meat consumption.
Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said:
“We lead the world when it comes to tackling climate change and we want to carry on breaking records, which is why we’ve put foundations in place to allow our renewables sector to thrive. We’re now on a path to become the first major economy to legislate for net zero emissions.”
