It was a grim day for a send-off.
Rain poured down the large cooling towers at Ratcliffe-on-Soar energy plant in Nottinghamshire because the final wisps of steam floated away from them – the fading heat of the furnaces shut down the night time earlier than bleeding into the low cloud above.
A gradual finish to the UK’s 142-year reliance on coal for electrical energy.
In a marquee under, former employees, energy trade executives, civil servants and a authorities minister gathered to say because of the employees on the UK’s final coal-fired energy plant.
Like every good wake, this was additionally a celebration of the 57-year-long lifetime of the plant.
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Pic: UNIPER/PA
A life through which it supplied energy to a lot of the East Midlands.
The printed of the moon landings, the floodlights at Nottingham Forest’s Metropolis Floor and 6,821 episodes of EastEnders, all powered by electrons flowing from its generators.
A comfortable factoid from Uniper, the corporate that owns the plant: it generated sufficient energy in its lifetime to have made two trillion cups of tea.
Away from the celebration, the temper within the management room was extra sombre.
A few of the employees have labored on the plant because it was owned by the Central Electrical energy Producing Board.
The second after they gave the instruction to cease producing the night time earlier than was, one in every of them advised me, “very sad”.
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What’s GB Vitality and what is going to it do?
After shutting the plant down, one other of the workforce walked by means of the now quiet turbine corridor to say their goodbyes.
They’ve recognized this second was coming for a decade, ever because the authorities introduced a phase-out of coal energy by 2025.
That lead time has allowed their union and employer to guard the roles of all 140 employees on the plant.
However there may be now a much more formidable – and essential – objective to part out all fossil fuels from our electrical energy grid by 2030.
Managing that speedy transition, whereas defending the roles of tens of 1000’s of employees nonetheless employed in fossil gasoline industries within the UK, will probably be a lot more durable.
