Britain vows to phase out coal-fired energy plants by 2025

This week the UK Government announced that all coal-fired energy plants in the UK will close by 2025, with restrictions to their use in place by 2023. The Energy and Climate secretary Amber Rudd said that the aim is to have reliable, cost effective energy and to reduce carbon emissions, rather than continuing to use old, polluting power stations.

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel on the planet. Currently China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world (Link to the forecast energy blog). In China it is estimated that 4000 people die every day as a result of pollution from burning coal. This accounts for 1 in 6 premature deaths in the country, and China is aiming to move away from this toxic source of energy.

The UK is currently also heavily-reliant on coal as a source of energy. Coal-fired energy plants currently produce about 28% of the UK’s power, but the case for their closure is convincing. The majority of coal mines closed in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, so coal is currently imported mainly from Russia, the US and Columbia. There are well-established negative effects of burning this coal the environment. In the UK coal was responsible for 87 million tonnes of CO2 emission in 2014, 16% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emission. Indeed UK air-quality has breached EU standards for years, with an estimated 29000 people dying in the UK every year from long-term exposure to air pollution. A report from Climate Action Network Europe estimated that deaths from coal pollution cost the UK as much as £7.15 billion in 2013 – a figure linked to the cost of mortality and not healthcare - with deaths from cardiovascular illnesses and cancer linked to the 395 kilotons of pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

The government intend to switch to gas-fuelled power plants as a replacement. Environmental groups have welcomed the phasing out of coal as a power supply. But they are wary of it being superseded by gas-plants instead of a combined shift in focus to more sustainable renewable energy.