The last coal-fired power station in the UK, Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, has now closed.
In the 1950s, coal provided the overwhelming majority of British energy. By 2022, it was less than 2%. Today, it will be zero – ending 140 years of burning coal to make electricity.
But how did we get to this point?
And what needs to happen for workers in all fossil fuel industries to be part of a just transition towards a fairer economy, based on clean energy?
A huge victory for the climate, won over decades
Coal is the dirtiest, most polluting way of producing energy. It’s a serious threat to people’s health from air pollution.
Burning coal releases more carbon dioxide than oil or gas, so it’s a major cause of climate change.
The closure of the final coal plant in the UK is an important victory in the fight against climate change, won over many decades.
And Greenpeace UK had more than a little to do with it…
How the UK got from no new coal to no coal at all
When six Greenpeace activists climbed Kingsnorth in Kent in 2007, coal supplied at least a third of the UK’s electricity – with renewables less than 6%.
The activists were seen as radical and unrealistic. The whole world seemed to be ramping up coal use – and the UK had similar plans.
The year after the Kingsnorth climbers took to the towering chimneys, the then-Labour government was threatening to build a ‘new generation’ of coal-fired power stations.
This would include a new Kingsnorth, fitted with carbon capture and storage (which didn’t even really exist back then).
Greenpeace united with groups all over the UK to challenge those climate-wrecking plans. The second Climate Camp was held at Kingsnorth in 2008.
It worked. In 2010, E.On shelved the new power station plan.
Recognising the writing on the wall, other plans for new coal were shelved.
Over the succeeding years, it was existing coal stations that came into the firing line. Greenpeace and climate activists all over the UK pushed all the main parties in the 2015 General Election to agree to end the use of unabated coal. the use of coal without substantial efforts to reduce its harmful emissions.
Soon after, in 2017, the UK had its first coal free day since the Industrial Revolution.
And now, the last existing coal power station in the UK has closed.
Ratcliffe’s legacy: a well-managed transition for its workers
Ratcliffe closing is a momentous victory for the climate and people’s health, and well worth celebrating. But the move away from fossil fuels – and especially coal – has long been a struggle for the workers who are left behind.
Fortunately, Ratcliffe’s legacy will likely be a positive one for its workers. The GMB, Prospect and Unite unions worked closely with Uniper, which owns the Ratcliffe power station, to plan and manage the impact of the site closure on the 154 workers on site.
Processes to identify new jobs for workers to move to, and flexibly release them with full redundancy pay, were backed up by funding and support for workers to reskill and retrain.
The energy company told the BBC that 125 staff would stay on to fully close down the plant, and that it hopes the site could eventually become a zero-carbon technology and energy hub.
While this is undoubtedly a huge win, there’s no shortage of lessons – both good and bad – to be learned in future moves towards a fossil fuel-free UK.
Unions warn that more than 30,000 jobs are under threat from the Labour government’s plans to ban new licences for oil and gas production in the UK, for example.
As we celebrate this historic moment, the new UK government must look to a bright, fossil fuel-free future – with a fair and well-funded transition to clean energy jobs for UK workers.
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