Britain's last coal-fired power station and penultimate steelworks closed today. This is the result of the government's strong push for decarbonization, even at the expense of affordable energy and domestic steel production capacity, which is critical to the defense industry.
Although they are hundreds of miles apart from each other, two of the last bastions of the British Industrial Revolution are permanently closed today, and their respective demises are slow-burning but very much underway. Very tied together through the UK electricity price crisis. Ratcliffe, Soar, where the once state-of-the-art coal-fired steam turbine power station and blast furnace at Port Talbot closed on Monday, comes as new figures show Britain's electricity bills are the world's most expensive by a wide margin. Days later, coincidentally, they coincide. .
Ratcliffe-on-Soar, a familiar sight to people in the East Midlands with its cooling towers overlooking flat landscapes for miles around, was originally due to close in 2022, was granted a suspended sentence after he invaded Ukraine. Global energy markets were thrown into crisis as gas supplies to Europe suddenly became unpredictable and politically fraught. Britain was the first country in the world to build a coal-fired power station 142 years ago, and today it is the first country to close all coal-fired power stations, although smaller countries such as Portugal and Sweden were first to do so. It became a major economic country.
The power plant is currently scheduled to be decommissioned and the land redeveloped, eliminating the possibility of restarting the power plant if sudden changes in the global energy landscape once again affect supply.
The path to today's closure dates back decades to the government's clashes with Margaret Thatcher's government. powerful coal union The government tried to shut down the country with strikes, which led to gas shortages in the 1990s. Coal has significant advantages over other energy sources, not least because it is cheap and available in large quantities domestically, reducing the UK's dependence on unreliable foreign partners and being easily stockpiled for immediate use.
On the other hand, it is bete noir It is one of the most popular environmental activists and is actively targeted by the UK government in its push to decarbonise. Nominally, former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne introduced a “carbon price” in 2013 that would make coal-fired power generation artificially more expensive through taxes and force generators to turn to other sources of power. . The government has announced that all coal-fired power generation will be phased out within 10 years by 2015, and that target has now been met. as 1 report found for 2020Britain's carbon tax has destroyed 93 per cent of coal-fired power generation. University College London said:
Electricity generated from coal in the UK has fallen from 13.1 TWh (terawatt hours) in 2013 to 0.97 TWh in September 2019, and has been replaced by other forms of generation with lower emissions, such as gas. Increased electricity imports from the continent have reduced the impact on UK prices. England.
The problem is that electricity is currently very expensive in the UK. In fact, it is currently the most expensive in the world, thanks in large part to government intervention to force a green push without addressing the nation's fundamental problems with energy storage. Latest figures show electricity prices have risen 124% in the past five years, as the last coal-fired power stations have been scaled down, although other factors were also at play, with UK electricity prices once again on par with Europe's. It is half.
In contrast to the United States, which embraced hydraulic fracturing and became a major electricity producer, the United Kingdom's electricity 4x more expensive, it is reported.
High energy costs seriously damage the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries and inhibit investment. A prime example of heavy industry fleeing expensive energy is steel production, which in the UK is probably now in its final months of production. In a remarkable coincidence, the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station took place on the same day as the closure of the last steelmaking blast furnace at Port Talbot in south Wales.
The closure has been in the spotlight for months because so many job losses are expected in Labor-voting areas. But despite this, the government refused to prevent the closure, paying out £500 million to support the construction of a new electric furnace in the town to replace the blast furnace, and in some ways subsidizing its demolition.
The problem, of course, is that even in highly energy-intensive industries like steel production, electric furnaces use even more electricity and can't actually produce new steel, just recycle old steel. It's just that it's used to do something. The only site in the UK capable of producing virgin steel is Chinese-owned Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, which could well be shut down this year, raising new national security concerns. .
As GMB Union said earlier this year: “Fresh steel is essential for warships and other parts of the defense industry.” British government and NATO spokespeople have warned that war is on the horizon. Despite this, Britain said it was tacitly condoning domestic steel production. He said: “We are on the brink of completely losing our ability to make our own steel, which is essential for our defense industry, especially in warship construction. That is just nonsense.”
The truth is that producing steel in the UK is very expensive, and energy prices are contributing to this. Where prices are low, such as in China, communist countries can keep global markets depressed by dumping large amounts of cheap steel made from coal. In July, UK Steel complained that its factories were paying twice the £113 per megawatt rate paid in France and Spain for electricity, including wholesale electricity costs, grid connection charges and carbon tax.
Recent statistics on China's energy costs show that they are a fraction of what European companies are paying, and China remains dependent on coal in a way that Western countries no longer do. . The UK still imports steel, effectively offshoring its emissions, and because steel produces carbon wherever it is made, so do its jobs.
The UK now faces the coming winter without the ability to run backup coal-fired power plants to smooth out fluctuations in market prices, or even simply to keep the lights on in a crisis. Just last spring, when it was cloudy and cold and there was no wind, coal came back to replace lost renewable energy.
