Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2017 16:52:47 GMT
"King Coal is, almost overnight, being banished from Britain.
When Drax opened for business in 1974, Britain got 80 percent of its electricity from burning coal. As recently as five years ago, the figure was 40 percent. But last year, it was 9 percent, and this summer coal supplied less than 2 percent of Britain’s electricity. On April 21, 2017, for the first time since its inception, the British power grid went 24 hours without coal.
The zing in the power lines now comes almost entirely from natural gas, nuclear, and growing networks of giant wind turbines and solar farms. The government says all of the U.K.’s remaining coal plants will be shut by 2025 – maybe sooner. Drax will live on, but only by burning biomass – mostly wood chips imported from the southern United States...
But it is the speed of King Coal’s demise in Britain – its first and most important stronghold – that is breathtaking, says Michael Grubb, energy analyst at University College London. It shows what can be done, even in an essentially market-based energy system such as operates in the U.K.
Coal was the foundation of Britain’s rise as the dominant global power in the 18th and 19th centuries. It became the engine of the modern industrialized and urbanized world."
e360.yale.edu/features/in-a-stunning-turnaround-britain-moves-to-end-the-burning-of-coal
Amazing turnaround.
When Drax opened for business in 1974, Britain got 80 percent of its electricity from burning coal. As recently as five years ago, the figure was 40 percent. But last year, it was 9 percent, and this summer coal supplied less than 2 percent of Britain’s electricity. On April 21, 2017, for the first time since its inception, the British power grid went 24 hours without coal.
The zing in the power lines now comes almost entirely from natural gas, nuclear, and growing networks of giant wind turbines and solar farms. The government says all of the U.K.’s remaining coal plants will be shut by 2025 – maybe sooner. Drax will live on, but only by burning biomass – mostly wood chips imported from the southern United States...
But it is the speed of King Coal’s demise in Britain – its first and most important stronghold – that is breathtaking, says Michael Grubb, energy analyst at University College London. It shows what can be done, even in an essentially market-based energy system such as operates in the U.K.
Coal was the foundation of Britain’s rise as the dominant global power in the 18th and 19th centuries. It became the engine of the modern industrialized and urbanized world."
e360.yale.edu/features/in-a-stunning-turnaround-britain-moves-to-end-the-burning-of-coal
Amazing turnaround.
