The UK keeps breaking coal use records, but the battle to fight climate change is more complicated

Does breaking the coal record mean we’re any closer to reaching a net zero emissions goal?

The UK government has announced it has broken the record for the longest amount of time it has not used coal since the inception of the industrial revolution.

A report released by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced the UK has generated a coal-free energy run lasting a record-breaking eight days, more than doubling the 90 hours coal-free the nation celebrated in April.

Coal may have been identified as a polluting energy right at the advent of the industrial revolution – and the supplier a quarter of the world’s primary energy — but the country has been heavily dependent on coal for over a century.

In fact, Britain’s longest coal-free spell prior to this year was in 2018, lasting 76 hours and 10 minutes.

A ‘split-second’ coincidence

But while the government may be celebrating the move, the actual recent record is something of a coincidence, but one influenced by a regulatory approach incentivising the use of coal.

The nation’s energy supplier, the National Grid, said they do not have any carbon emissions goals in mind when they decided what power plants will fuel the UK that day – it is a “split-second” decision.

“This streak hasn’t happened because it was planned, it’s taking into account a culmination of factors,” a spokesperson from the National Grid told i.

“Coal is decreasing in popularity because its one of the more expensive fuel options, and at this time of year, it’s less likely to be used by plants.”

When looking at suppliers on the grid, its operators don’t look at the greenest supplier – they look at what’s cheapest and meet the supply and demand.

“The government’s long-term policies to reduce coal use may have had an impact, but we’re generation neutral.”

“We take a look at what the cheapest supplier is at that time, the demand of the population and what power plants are on the system for the good of the public.”

“And now, we have more renewables and gas on the system, and they’re cheaper than coal.”

Why is the UK switching from coal?

In order to commit to the goal of drastically reducing their carbon footprint by 2020, the UK decided to reduce the allure of coal to big energy providers.

“The way we generate electricity is set by the market. The reason why we’re getting these long periods of coal-free generation, there’s cheaper ways of generating electricity, such as renewable energy, like wind and gas,” explained Matthew Lockwood, senior lecturer in energy policy at Sussex University, to i.

Wind farms are on the rise in the UK (Photo: Getty)

“Policies like the UK carbon tax have made coal more expensive, which is why less energy providers are using it.

“But while several policies like the carbon tax have been around for a while, there was a wave of completion of wind farms in 2018, meaning the UK could rely on it a lot more as a source of power.”

Scrambling around the EU Renewable Energy Directive

But throughout the substance’s history, we have known it has been bad for the environment – so why has the government decided to take action now?

The turn towards more renewable energy is because of an EU directive enforced in 2009.

Under the Renewable Energy Directive, member states were told they had to make 20 per cent of their energy renewable, leaving countries like the UK scrabbling to reduce their carbon footprint.

And over the past ten years, coal has been on a rapid decline in the UK.

In May 2009, the National Grid recorded using 12.7 gigawatts’ worth of coal to power Britain – a gigawatt of power generates enough energy for 700,000 homes across the nation.

In May 2009, the grid used as much as 12.9 gigawatts of coal in a day (Photo: Electric Insights)

By May 2017, the highest figure in per month is recorded as 6.6gw.

By May 2018, just 0.5gw of coal was the highest amount of the substance used.

The amount of non-renewable energy used in 2019 (Data: Electric Insights)

But as it stands, just 0.1gw of coal has been used in the first nine days of the month of May 2019.

So what other energy resources is the UK using?

Rise of plant biomass energy

Under the EU directive, the government has moved to sources other than renewable energy sources, and some of those supplies are believed to have an equally devastating impact on the environment – such as plant biomass energy.


Plant biomass has started to take up a significant staple of the UK’s energy supply (Photo: Wikipedia)

Experts like Sasha Stashwick, climate and clean energy senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defecse Council said that in the rush, the directive made a critical error.

“When the EU made the directive, it said trees can grow back and can reabsorb that carbon. Because of that, they said burning them to create electricity would be a zero carbon emitting source,” the advocate told i.

Because of this, the UK turned to wood biomass energy.

The process, which relies on chopping down trees to create wood pellets to generate energy, is favoured by the UK, according to Ms Stashwick – and because of this legislative loophole, could be exploited with concerning consequences.

“The UK is the largest user of biomass energy in the world,” she said.

“People genuinely thought this was a good solution, but it creates the same carbon emissions as coal. But because the EU said burning trees for power was a zero emissions task, coal emissions disappear under the ledger while the government hides its equally destructive emissions.

Some experts believe an increasing reliance on biomass energy is equally destructive (Photo: MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images)

“Phasing out coal out is commendable, and extraordinarily important. But I think when the average British citizen thinks about what their subsidies are going to, they’re thinking wind, or zero carbon resources. They don’t think about burning coal, to burning something else equally polluting.”

The government has said they will reduce the reliance on biomass energy. Claire Perry, Minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said: “We see use of biomass in coal conversions as a transitional technology, helping us on our path to a low carbon economy. We have announced that support for coal to biomass conversions will end in 2027 and we will be consulting on making coal-to-biomass conversions ineligible for future allocation rounds of the Contract for Difference scheme in due course.”

Legislating for zero net emissions

Although Professor Lockwood believes there is “still a significant battle on our hands” to reduce our carbon footprint, he believes the government’s figures show promise in the battle to fight climate change.

“It’s quite impressive,” he told i.

“It’s played a really central role in what UK has achieved in emission reduction. Between 2012 and 2018, 75% of the reduction in the UK’s emissions were due to the reduction in coal use and electricity.

“Coal-free is great from a climate change point of view, but that’s not the end of the story. The next stage is much more difficult, and that does involve gas. It does play a major role, and is the largest source of our energy generation at the moment. It will be much harder to phase it out,” he added.

Coal is still favoured globally as a source of power [Photo: Getty Images]
“I think it’s a fact that it’s out of sight, out of mind that allows it to continue,” said Ms Stashwick.

“There needs to be additional pressure on the government to do what’s right. There’s no time to waste at this point. We have ten years to cut global carbon commissions in half. It’s an emergency and we have to act like it,” she added.”

But the government believes in spite of its critics, it is making “world-leading efforts to reduce emissions.”

