Britain shrugs off EU curbs on coal plants despite looming threat of blackouts

The United Kingdom will not challenge the European Union’s environmental rules which have led to closure of many old coal power plants, even as the country faces threats of power blackouts within the next two years, The Times of London reported on Monday.

“We are not planning to break the rules on that,” Britain’s Energy Minister Michael Fallon was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Britain’s coal-fired generators, once the backbone of British energy industry, pumped out 91.86 terrawatt-hours (TWh) of power in the first nine months of this year, down 3 per cent from the year before, according to provisional data published by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.

“We see coal shrinking very rapidly from now on, probably contributing nothing by 2030. Coal is going to disappear off the system,” Fallon told the British paper.

National Grid has already warned of winter blackouts if investments are not made in new capacities even while Britain’s power market is tightening over its ageing power-generation capacity.

Coal, which when burned produces about twice the greenhouse gases as natural gas, is not in retreat. In 2011, coal was used to generate 30.3 per cent of the world's primary energy, the highest level since 1969, according to the World Coal Association, an industry trade group. That share slipped only to 29.9 per cent last year.