Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Ratcliffe-on Soar Power Station will finally close at the end of September.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886qd2g80xo

Its cooling towers have been a feature around here for as long as I can remember (Built in the mid 1960's).

I once stood inside one of the towers in the early 1970's.

My Dad worked for the C.E.G.B (as a Shift Control Engineer) and gave me a tour of the station, including the control room, and inside one of the towers (the tower was undergoing maintenance at the time, so you could safely venture inside it).

I actually got to visit about 4 power stations in the East Midlands, plus the Nottingham Grid Control Centre (located in Clifton). The control centre was where I first learned computer programming (in Fortran) on their mainframe. I wrote some reports they used for a number of years.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

To be replaced by what? …..that’s the problem.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

As coal was used as source for 1% of our power in 2023 I think there’s a degree of over egging the pudding going on.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

I've seen these cooling towers a lot whilst aircraft spotting at East Midlands Airport.
I think it will take a year or so before they get taken down.
Here are some photos I took a few years back...

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

My father worked for Parsons and commisioned the generators for this power station all those years ago.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Not really. We’ve almost entirely eliminated coal from our energy mix so we don’t use it for base load and we often don’t use it to cover exceptional demand either. Our baseload is covered by gas, nuclear and biomass. In future the balance will tip towards nuclear.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Oh yes, fuelling Drax, Wood pellets from North America, shipped over here to Liverpool and then onto Drax by diesel train to Yorkshire.


So Green.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Unlike the coal, which from 2020 came from from countries including Russia, Australia, South Africa, Columbia and Poland?

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Eyesores, that have destroyed the planet.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

It isn’t. But it is what has replaced coal, and it is the lack of coal which you presented as causing a problem.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

I agree, we had, and still have, plentiful coal reserves.

---------- Post added at 12:14 ---------- Previous post was at 12:14 ----------

Like I say, there's no "lack of coal" just the lack of will to extract it.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Well no, you didn’t mention coal reserves earlier, you implicitly criticised alternative energy sources in what you actually said, which was: ‘to be replaced by what … that’s the problem’.

So what is your actual complaint about the removal of coal from our electricity generation mix? Because your point seems to keep shifting.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

My actual complaint is the removal of stable, relatively cheap, energy. That is being replaced by not stable, relatively expensive energy.

Or in the case of biomas, being hoodwinked into thinking that importing wood pellets from North America is any greener that using coal from the UK.

Anyway, I take your point, I'm drifting away from the topic and into general energy policy.

Needless to say, it's obvious what side of that debate I'm on.

Re: Last UK Coal Fuelled Power Station to Close
 

Thank you :tu:

The problem is, stable, cheap energy (coal) has raised global temperatures and continues to do so, with as-yet unknown consequences for human civilisation. Already, summer conditions in the UK have become less benign and predictable.

Acidification of rain in Scandinavia used to be a thing, which we were almost single-handedly responsible for, thanks to our industrial-scale burning of coal, but that has become a thing of the past.

It’s like an Asda smart price lasagne. You could eat it every night and thereby live on £5 a week, but should you?