PLEA Network

31 March 2016, Energy Post, The end of coal: good riddance or dangerous gamble? Scotland has become the first part of the UK to stop burning coal to supply electricity following the closure of Longannet, its largest power station, on March 24. According to Paul Younger, Professor of Energy Engineering at University of Glasgow, the closure of coal-fired power plants in the UK may lead to serious problems with voltage control. Prepare for power interruptions and flickering lights. The closure of Longannet is a sign of the times, with the rest of the UK’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 sulphur 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.If we are going to manage without Longannet and all the other gas-fired and coal-fired power stations, we would need at least 970 GWh of storage – more than a hundred pumped hydropower stations of comparable size to those we already have. 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 US 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 stabilisation services for frequency and voltage across the grid. Read More here