On Monday, September 30, the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station in the United Kingdom will close its doors. Since the late 1960s, its large chimneys dominated the monotonous landscape of this corner of Nottinghamshire, east of the Midlands. The plant was the last coal-fired power station still operating in the UK and its closure makes the country the first G7 member to permanently phase out coal.
Although the moment is largely symbolic (coal only accounts for around 1% of national electricity production), it is still very significant, since the existence of the British Empire has been heavily dependent on this fuel for a long time. , described as black gold, but it is. one of the worst CO emitters2 in the atmosphere.
The first industrial revolution would not have been born in the United Kingdom, between Manchester, Doncaster and Newcastle-upon-Tyne without the presence of adventurous financiers, enterprising engineers (James Watt, George Stephenson) and above all without the presence of enormous coal reserves. . in its subsoil, from the valleys of Wales to the coalfields of County Durham, Yorkshire and the Fife peninsula, north of Edinburgh. Fuel has been exploited since the Middle Ages but the discovery of the steam engine and its use in mines allowed the explosion of its exploitation and use for locomotion, heating or electricity generation.
Designed by the Edison Electrict Light Company, the company of Thomas Edison (inventor of the electric light bulb), the first British coal-fired power station opened in 1882 in the Holborn district in the heart of London, to supply wealthy people and industries. from the east end. Success was rapid, coal-fired power plants multiplied, first in the heart of cities and then in the outskirts, as authorities became aware of the dangers to public health of episodes of “smog” in the heart of the country. from London. In 1920, 90% of the country’s electricity was generated by coal and the United Kingdom was the world’s leading exporter of this fuel until the dawn of the Second World War.
The decline began in the 1970s.
Coal has also marked its social history, as have its landscapes, still dotted with “hole towns” (mining towns) in Yorkshire or County Durham. The first laws to protect workers were adopted in the mid-19th century.my century, to prohibit the work of women and children under 10 years of age in mines. The first unions emerged from miners’ “lodges” (associations), often created by members of the Methodist Church (a branch of Protestantism). From the 1950s onwards, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was an essential interlocutor for those in power; His calls for strikes paralyzed the country in 1972 or 1974.
You have 53.27% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
