Britain recently announced the closure of the country’s last coal-fired power plant, as well as an ambitious new energy plan. This week on Possibly, we break down what happened.
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
This Christmas, all of Britain must be on Santa’s Nice List – there won’t be any coal in anyone’s stockings because earlier this year, Britain closed its last coal-fired power plant.
Here to tell us more are Will Malloy and Emma Mejia
Will Malloy: Hi Megan!
Emma Mejia: Hello!
Megan Hall: So what’s going on here? The UK shut down their last coal-fired power plant?
Will Malloy: Yeah! The plant that just closed down was called Ratcliffe-on-Soar – and it had been making electricity by burning coal for nearly 60 years.
Emma Mejia: And while the closure of any coal-fired plant is an environmental win, this one is especially symbolic.
Will Malloy: Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, which was powered by using coal on a way bigger scale than ever before.
Emma Mejia: According to our co-founder and Brown’s Associate Provost for Sustainability Stephen Porder-
Stephen Porder: It was where the first coal-fired power plant in the world was. And the idea that a place that birthed the use of fossil fuels as a global source of energy is now turning away from them is, I think, a powerful symbol of what can be done when we develop other technologies to replace the old ones of the past.
Megan Hall: Remind me – what is so bad about coal?
Will Malloy: When we talk about fossil fuels, we mean oil, coal, and natural gas.
Emma Mejia: And out of those three, coal has the highest greenhouse gas emissions.
Stephen Porder: Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels in terms of the amount of emissions you get per unit of energy.
Will Malloy: So burning coal significantly contributes to climate change, and it also puts a whole bunch of tiny particles into the air, which are really bad for our health.
Emma Mejia: Since the Industrial Revolution, coal has been a big part of how Brits – and most of the planet – makes electricity.
Stephen Porder:in the 1950s, it provided close to 100% of British electricity… And now it will provide none, which is kind of an amazing transition.
Megan Hall: How is that possible?
Will Malloy: Well, in the last few decades, a lot of the coal business has been gradually replaced by natural gas.
Emma Mejia: But if we look at just the last ten years or so, we start to see things like wind and solar power really come on the scene.
Stephen Porder: So if you go from 2010 to now, basically you’ve eliminated all the coal and it’s been replaced almost entirely by renewables.
Will Malloy: But the grid in the UK isn’t totally clean yet, and closing down gas plants will be hard.
Emma Mejia: But the UK just announced a major new energy plan that would require 95% of the country’s power to come from renewable sources in the next five years.
Megan Hall: Wow! That’s really soon. What about other places in the world? Is coal on the way out everywhere?
Emma Mejia: That kinda depends if you’re a glass half empty or a glass half full person.
Stephen Porder: So coal right now is 35% of all electricity production in the world, down from about 40% in the 2010s. So it’s falling – being replaced by wind and solar, mostly –
Will Malloy: So, if you see the glass as half full, you can take that as a win.
Megan Hall: I sense a “but” coming…
Emma Mejia: Well – we are burning more coal and gas than ever before because we are using more and more electricity on a global scale.
Will Malloy: If you’re picturing the world’s energy sources as a pie, coal is becoming a smaller piece of that pie, but the pie itself is getting bigger.
Stephen Porder: The glass really is half full and it really is half empty.
Emma Mejia: But for now, there’s no question that the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar and the end of coal-powered energy in Britain is great news for the climate.
Megan Hall: One last question – if there’s no more coal being burned in Britain, what is Santa going to put in all those stockings?
Will Malloy: If you ask me, getting greener and saying goodbye to coal earns everyone a spot on the Nice list.
Stephen Porder: I hope everybody gets a little solar panel in their stocking.
Megan Hall: That sounds good to me! And happy holidays from all of us here at Possibly.
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or X at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and The Public’s Radio.
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