Scotland has become the first part of the U.K. to stop burning coal to supply electricity following the closure of Longannet, its largest power station, on March 24. It is a sign of the times, with the rest of the U.K.’s coal-fired power stations on death row after energy secretary Amber Rudd announced late last year that they will all be forced to close by 2025.
For many reasons, it is hard to mourn the demise of coal-fired power. Around 12,000 miners are killed around the world each year, most of them digging for coal; abandoned mines cause widespread water pollution; and coal-fired plants pollute the air with the likes of nitrogen and sulfur compounds, as well as the highest greenhouse-gas emissions of any major source of energy generation. In the absence of carbon capture and storage, a technology which would be ready more quickly if the government backed it properly, plant closure may therefore seem sensible—even while we should help those that lose their jobs and regret the loss of skills from the workforce.
That would be all there was to say were it not for a few harsh realities of electricity supply. There are two reasons why coal-fired power plants have survived so long. Coal is cheap; only since the U.S. shale-gas boom has it been consistently beaten on price. And coal-fired plants are particularly suited to providing power on demand at short notice, as well as providing crucial stabilization services for frequency and voltage across the grid.
Power on Demand
If we are unable to dispatch electricity on demand, we must expect blackouts. To do away with coal-fired power before alternatives are available is bold, to say the least. Gas-fired plants can play the same role, of course, but we have not been building them in the U.K. in recent decades. And the economics for doing so have been made very difficult by the capacity-auctions system that helps to fund them, which has also seen many existing plants mothballed.
As for nuclear power, it is low-carbon but provides electricity at a constant rate and therefore can’t be increased to track demand. Besides, the ongoing fiasco over Hinkley C—and by extension nuclear new-build in general—hardly makes it look a great contributor to energy security in the foreseeable future.
