Goodbye to Old King Coal

So farewell, Ratcliffe-on-Soar: the UK’s last coal-fired power station shut down on Monday, having burned five million tonnes of coal per year since it opened in 1968. Back then, 80 per cent of national power came from coal, our primary energy source since the 1880s; at the turn of this century there were still 25 coal plants in operation across the country. Now there are none – and 36 per cent of our power in the past year came from wind, solar and hydro with 7 per cent from biomass, compared with 24 per cent from natural gas and just 1 per cent from Ratcliffe’s coal.

That’s a remarkable transition – but far from proof that we’ll have sufficient clean energy to keep the mid-century lights on. Nuclear output, around 15 per cent of the national requirement and essential baseload supply when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, declined sharply last year due to closures of old reactors and outages in remaining ones, while the delayed Hinkley Point C station in Somerset won’t come on stream until at least 2030.