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United Kingdom Power Science

Britain Set For First Coal-Free Day Since Industrial Revolution (theguardian.com) 206

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The UK is set to have its first ever working day without coal power generation since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Grid. The control room tweeted the predicted milestone on Friday, adding that it is also set to be the first 24-hour coal-free period in Britain. The UK has had shorter coal-free periods in 2016, as gas and renewables such as wind and solar play an increasing role in the power mix. The longest continuous period until now was 19 hours -- first achieved on a weekend last May, and matched on Thursday. Hannah Martin, head of energy at Greenpeace UK, said: "The first day without coal in Britain since the Industrial Revolution marks a watershed in the energy transition. A decade ago, a day without coal would have been unimaginable, and in 10 years' time our energy system will have radically transformed again." Britain became the first country to use coal for electricity when Thomas Edison opened the Holborn Viaduct power station in London in 1882. It was reported in the Observer at the time that "a hundred weight of coal properly used will yield 50 horse power for an hour." And that each horse power "will supply at least a light equivalent to 150 candles."
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Britain Set For First Coal-Free Day Since Industrial Revolution

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21, 2017 @10:46PM (#54281027)

    Britain's rise in the mid-19th century was due to coal. And major cities in the UK are still present around strategic coal fields. Moving away from coal is inevitable, but the British economy benefited greatly from this dirty energy source. And the West is currently denying those benefits to the third world, isn't it convenient that coal is bad now that the first world has exhausted theirs and no longer needs it. But the natural resource is plentiful in Africa, India and China and every step is being taken to prevent them from using it. Maybe Britain would be less full of shit if they started contributing to building of the infrastructure of Africa, if they are so keen on denying them the use of coal power. Solar panels have a very large capital expense, they are cheap in the long run, but they are not feasible for running industry in poor countries.

    • by trabby ( 4123953 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @11:03PM (#54281081)
      China is the world leader in solar installations
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      As of 2014 China had 23% of total electricity generated by renewables:
      http://www.iea.org/statistics/... [iea.org]
    • Oh, but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? Can't say about other situations, offhand, but aren't you late finding some other imaginary oppressionâ to exploit? Does it make sense to anyone else that the first world goes around continuallyâ just for its amusement?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Maybe Britain would be less full of shit if they started contributing to building of the infrastructure of Africa,

      They already build the Cairo to Capetown line. You're welcome, you ungrateful little shit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You are either a shill or a troll to offer 19th century solutions to 21st+ century problems when they have obviously had long term negative effects on us all.

      China is the number 1 user of coal, and they have recently shut down 103 coal plants [nytimes.com], while investing $600 billion into solar power.

      That 'developing nation' America is the 2nd largest user of coal, and is ignoring the future while promising to bring coal back from the dead. Solar will produce hundreds of thousands of jobs, compared to the 6,000 or so c

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @12:27AM (#54281307) Homepage Journal

      For this argument to be compelling, you have to demonstrate that there was no alternative to coal. That doesn't seem to be the case, it was just the cheapest and most readily available option at the time.

      • What alternative do you suggest there was ? Wood is a very limited resource, and peat was running out.

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )
          The ones that have already been adopted will do for now.
          The coal free generation period is due to no new coal fired plants being built for years and not due to the Tories being "green".
    • by quenda ( 644621 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @01:11AM (#54281393)

      now that the first world has exhausted theirs and no longer needs it.

      Most of the world's coal exports are from developed countries, notably Australia, USA and Russia.
      You are twisting facts to your political agenda.

      Maybe Britain would be less full of shit if they started contributing to building of the infrastructure of Africa,

      Britain build a great deal of Africa's infrastructure. Unfortunately most of it has fallen into neglect and decay since independence.

    • by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @02:35AM (#54281575)

      Solar panels have a very large capital expense

      Not really. With solar panels you can start small. Even a single panel can provide a few hundred watts in the African sun. That's enough to run some small equipment that you can use to manufacture stuff, and slowly build up. Try that with coal.

      • by swb ( 14022 )

        I can't use coal to heat the forge for the metal for a boiler that will produce the coal-fired steam that will drive my 24/7 electric generator?

        I kind of think that sounds like the industrial revolution in a single sentence.

    • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday April 22, 2017 @03:53AM (#54281657)

      "Britain's rise in the mid-19th century was due to coal. And major cities in the UK are still present around strategic coal fields."

      It's kinda cute that you think any 'major city' in GB was built in the 19th century.

      Which Koch brother are you?

      • any 'major city' in GB was built in the 19th century.

        All the little villages that were close to natural resources or advantageously located were the ones that developed into major cities. The move from the countryside and an agrarian life to a city and an industrial life is what made those cities "major".

        So yes, the OP was correct, indirectly.

    • Perhaps if Africa had held smarter people, they would have had a "mid-19th century" boom in coal... but they didn't, England did, so there is that...

      We are now in the 21st century, yet much of Africa might as well still be in the 19th, that isn't Britain's fault...

      • Partly it is.
        They killed the local aristocrats.
        Divided the continent up into arbitrary 'countries', ignoring ethnics and langugaes etc.
        In the end, like all colonization projects, they withdrew. Most of tfhe wars there are the direct fault of the withdrawing european colonization projects.
        Look on a damn map. No border in Africa is 'natural' or comes from a 'normal development' of the people living there.
        Camarun e.g. is even divided in an english speaking and an french speaking part.

        The countires under the fo

        • And remind me again why the Africans didn't do this to the Europeans?

          Why exactly did Africa not invade Europe, instead of the other way around?

          Oh, that's right, because they are dumb as rocks, or they would have dug themselves out and built a nation of modern civilization. Even today, they can't get their act together.

          • Africans at that time were not as technological advanced.
            That is all.

            Calling other people dumb, based on their origin, is not only racist, it is plain stupid.

            Even today, they can't get their act together.
            Some regions go very well in Africa. Not everything is like Sudan or Somalia.

        • And yet a continent that's larger than Europe, has more people than Europe, etc did not manage to either fight the Europeans off or hold its own. A place where humanity came from so it's not like the issue was they weren't there long enough to develop. Compare Sub-Saharan Africa to China or to even the Americas. It's all kind of lame really.

          I don't blame the Europeans for Africa's backwardness. I think it's more due to parasites like malaria and sleeping sickness sapping people's productivity overall.

    • And the West is currently denying those benefits to the third world, isn't it convenient that coal is bad now that the first world has exhausted theirs and no longer needs it.

      The first world has not exhausted anything. Technology has moved on. We found out that what we do actually has an impact beyond a 100m radius from where we discharge pollution.

      If the east wants to use coal then they should put up with 70 year old cars, give up computers and do everything else that goes with not moving with the times. No one is denying the 3rd world energy, far from it. Companies are actively looking at providing the technology and R&D that was performed in the west to the 3rd world. But

    • ...anthracite in the UK?!

    • The capital expense for solar is significantly lower than coal - and it is much quicker to build. If you start building a coal plant and a solar plant of equal capacity at the same time -the solar plant will be done in 2 years, the coal plant is a minimum of 7 and 10 is more common. The solar plant will also cost a fraction. Every coal plant in Africa was built by the government - most solar plants were privately funded (because it's a much more sensible investment for a private investor).

      And of course, sol

    • Solar panels have a very large capital expense, they are cheap in the long run, but they are not feasible for running industry in poor countries.

      Raw, ready-to-mount, single-crystal panels are down to $0.50/watt now, in pallets of ten at about 350 watts each, and have good lifetimes. Even adding the control electronics and batteries for nighttime and bad weather power, and replacing the batteries periodically, that's cheaper than building and running coal plants and their distribution infrastructure (even a

  • How about imports? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by virtig01 ( 414328 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @12:48AM (#54281363)

    I've seen this story posted on environmental sites touting this as a success. But it's really just no coal on the island... when electricity imports should also be considered (there are interconnections between continental Europe, and also Ireland). And then there's the other big coal user: steel. A lot of British steel has left the island; it's just produced elsewhere and imported.

    So good for British air-breathers, but it's not exactly green energy transformation as some may believe.

    • but it's not exactly green energy transformation

      As fun as it is to shit on the achievement of others, the interconnects account for less than 10% of the UK's energy usage. Yesterday they accounted to closer to 6% as they started shedding interconnect load too. The French HVDC interconnect accounted for 5% of energy consumption in the UK. At the same time French coal generation was a whopping 0.700GW out of the total 54GW or about 1.3%.

      The other interconnector goes to Rotterdam. I can't find stats on the Dutch grid but it consists of 14% coal as installed

  • Still uses gas (Score:4, Informative)

    by cycler ( 31440 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @12:50AM (#54281365)

    The UK is still using LNG for electricity.

    I really don't understand why people bought the idea that LNG is a good thing.
    It's still fossile!

    On top of this, nuclear power is in the cross hairs despite having close to the lowest CO2 emission of all types.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources#2014_IPCC.2C_Global_warming_potential_of_selected_electricity_sources/ [wikipedia.org]

    It's also the only thing we can run 24/7 without sending wast amount of CO2 into the air.

    In short scrap all "renewable" hippie-power and go all nuclear with hydro as regulating power (or buy from your neighbors)
    (That said, hydro isn't the best thing either for local ecosystems)

    /C

    • Re:Still uses gas (Score:4, Interesting)

      by E-Lad ( 1262 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @02:36AM (#54281579)

      It's not /just/ about CO2, however. LNG is still fossil, yes, but given a choice between the two I'd rather have it over coal any day lest we continue to spew heavy metals, particulate matter, and other toxins into the air by continuing to burn coal.

    • On top of this, nuclear power is in the cross hairs despite having close to the lowest CO2 emission of all types.

      Maybe if the pro-nuke people hadn't made such a mess (21 serious incidents in Sellafield, for instance, including a major leak that wasn't detected for 9 months), the public opinion would have been more favourable.

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )

      It's still fossile!

      But it's ye olde fossile in ye olde Brittania :)

      nuclear power ... It's also the only thing we can run 24/7 without sending wast amount of CO2

      Wast amounts saved but mutates wascally wabbits!

      Seriously nukes were not even considered worth it by Reagan, Thatcher, Bush etc so even the "conservatives" don't like it and the private sector will not touch it without a lot of government money sweetening the deal. It's no longer a serious option for large scale electricity generation unless some s

    • I really don't understand why people bought the idea that LNG is a good thing.

      Because it has a significantly smaller portion of the CO2 emissions compared to coal. Because it has an almost non-existant portion of particulate emissions compared to coal. Because it has massively reduced NOx emissions compared to coal. Because it has zero of the toxic coal ash waste issues compared to coal.

      If we could replace all the Coal plants with LNG tomorrow, the world would be far better of.

    • Re:Still uses gas (Score:4, Insightful)

      by n3r0.m4dski11z ( 447312 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @12:03PM (#54283055) Homepage Journal

      " go all nuclear "

      Why do people think of nuclear power as "clean" power? The waste lasts for hundreds of thousands of years, far longer than any co2 we produce. Its the same human mentality that got us into this mess, externalities not being considered for an immediate gain in the moment. (in this case possibly dumping waste on hundreds of generations into the future)

      Zero waste is solar, tidal, geothermal, wind and water. The only way forward. Nuclear was a horrible mis-step by humanity and the problems will be easily visible to all in one hundred years. Especially if we have zero waste fusion developed in the next century. All your arguments will seem rather quaint, i hope.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by chihowa ( 366380 )

        Yeah? What's the half-life of CO2? Would you be happy living on Venus?

        The radioactive waste that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years isn't particularly dangerous due to its radioactivity (as heavy metals, it's chemically more dangerous). The volume of waste is not horribly difficult to deal with if we could actually do that instead of cutting corners and basing our decisions on profits and hysteria.

        Solar, tidal, geothermal, wind and water may directly produce little waste, but they each also have envir

        • Solar? Water pollution with solvents on silicon wafer manufacturing.

          Geothermal? Earthquakes induced by water injection.

          Wind? Need rare-earth electromagnets.

          Dams? Think of the fish.

          Like you said everything has drawbacks. It's a matter of choosing the best solution for the case in question.

    • I guess you are mixing up LNG with NG, or CH4?
      I doubt there is any poser plant that used LNG ... that would not make any sense at all.

  • blast-from-the-past dept

    Apt. It happened yesterday.

  • The UK is 18.5% nuclear, which helps, and it also imports 5% of its power from France. The giant coal plant at Drax in Yorkshire was converted to burn American wood pellets, which makes this hellmouth count as a renewable source under the European carbon accounting rules. Set up an artificial accounting system of any kind, and human nature dictates that tit will be scammed.

    Renewables have not been notably successful at making Britain sunnier.

    • How is that fake carbon accounting? Wood is a renewable resource. Certainly it's not ideal to burn wood for power but at least it isn't adding additional CO2 to the air like fossil fuels.

      • Wood is carbon neutral, sort of, if you don't count having to haul it across the Atlantic from the southern US in diesel-powered ships, but trees could be used to take carbon out of circulation for much longer periods of time.

      • Wood burning causes shittons of air pollution. It's even worse than coal. Anthracite coal, for example, is marvelously clean in comparison.

        It's rather bogus to ship wood pellets across the Atlantic to burn when there's anthracite coal in England.

    • Set up an artificial accounting system of any kind, and human nature dictates that tit will be scammed.

      Errr biomass is carbon neutral, produces less toxic flyash, and is renewable. It's not just powerplants switch to it. All sorts of systems are changing including small home heating systems.

      • In this context, a technology that is not renewable but produces no carbon beats one that is renewable but produces carbon.

      • by thogard ( 43403 )

        The small home wood heating systems are toxic to everyone near by so that won't be lasting long. Studies are showing that moderate levels of PM2.5 smog is a major health problem and excessively deadly

        Wood isn't 100% renewable in most cases. If you remove a bunch of trees, there is a very good chance that the total mass of trees that grow back will be smaller. In places with heavy deforestation, the amount of trees that can grow back may only be 50% of what was logged in the 1st round.

        Trees are delicatel

        • The small home wood heating systems are toxic to everyone near

          You may want to do more research. The PM2.5 emissions that are coming under scrutiny are the result of fireplaces and wood block based heating systems. Small integrated biomass pellet fed heating systems which are steadily increasing in use and are all the rage to save the world right now have 90% less PM10 emissions than traditional wood heating systems and 98% less PM2.5 emissions. It's comparable with natural gas except without the closed CO2 cycle.

          Not all biomass involved setting a tree on fire in your

  • by mean pun ( 717227 ) on Saturday April 22, 2017 @09:24AM (#54282447)
    Nice milestone, but see https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk] for a far more informative overview. It looks like coal usage in the UK is falling off a cliff.

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