The Guardian reports:
Coal made up well over one-third of the UK’s electricity generation in 2012, as cheap supplies and the collapse in the price of carbon permits sent generators rushing back to their ageing coal-fired power stations and set greenhouse gas emissions rising sharply.
According to data released on Thursday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), coal accounted for 39% of power generation in 2012, an increase of 10 percentage points over the 2011 figure. Overall coal consumption, including industrial and domestic use, rose by a quarter from 2011 to 2012. In the same period, carbon dioxide emissions rose by about 4%, after years of steady falls. This will make it harder to achieve the government’s climate change targets.
1. The carbon is okay. Please, UK, feel happy about the CO2.
2. The ash and soot are being trapped pretty well, I’m sure, but they actually matter.
3. The UK has a huge frackable play under Yorkshire that might end its use of coal for — well, forever, perhaps, at least as a fuel source. Coal has other uses.
4. The UK is planning to increase offshore wind by a factor of eight. Assuming they get some economies of scale, that means spending 6 or 6.5 times as much on subsidies and rents, as well as raising the cost of energy for even more of the UK’s residents. Good plan, that.