At last, one sensible decision from energy secretary Amber Rudd. I am among those who welcome the shutting down of all UK coal-fired plant by 2025, unless retrofitted with CCS.
That seems clear and unequivocal. Since no-one is prepared to invest in heavy-duty clean-up technologies, the operators of the remaining coal-fired plant effectively wrote the death warrant themselves.
On Tuesday evening, there was a fascinating documentary on the box about UK power generation. Basically the focus was Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, which is operated by Scottish & Southern Energy and clearly on its last legs.
The announcement that the UK is phasing out coal has been widely welcomed, but plans to shift to gas power have been described as an alcoholic swapping one type of drink for another.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd is to signal the end of polluting coal-fired power stations in the UK - but will say it is “imperative” new gas plants are built.
Coal miners and power station staff should be offered Government aid similar to that given to thousands of steelworkers made redundant, ministers have been told.
Protesters say they have shut down an opencast coal mine on land belonging to Conservative peer and climate sceptic Viscount Ridley.
Campaigners calling themselves “Matt Ridley’s Conscience” have occupied one of the diggers at Shotton surface mine, in Cramlington, Northumberland on Viscount Ridley’s Blagdon Estate.
The group, a mix of local campaigners and protesters from across the UK, have also formed a protest blocking the road, locking their arms into red arm tubes as part of a protest calling for an end to coal mining to protect the climate.
Oil tycoon Algy Cluff warned Scottish ministers the day after a moratorium on fracking was confirmed that Scotland could risk losing £250million of investment.
The multi-millionaire warned energy minister Fergus Ewing and Alex Neil that including his plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) in the moratorium would have an impact on Cluff Natural Resources (CNR) ability to “operate and invest” further in Scotland.
CNR has ploughed ahead with plans to develop Britain’s first offshore UCG project in recent times, despite opposition from environmentalists, who feel the methods used are unsafe and require further testing.
Ed Miliband has asked ministers to act urgently to ensure one of Britain’s last remaining deep pit coal mines does not close earlier than originally planned.
The former energy secretary warned that Hatfield Colliery in his Doncaster North constituency is under “very serious pressures”, adding action is needed to keep it open until summer 2016.
The South Yorkshire mine has received Government loans to support its managed closure.
In January, it was announced a short-term commercial loan of £8 million had been made available to support Hatfield Colliery Partnership Ltd’s closure plan.
A new international research programme is being launched to make renewables cheaper than coal within 10 years.
The scheme’s backers, who include leading figures from business, government and academia, warn that cheap clean energy is crucial to keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 2C - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change.
Like the US programme in the 1960s to put a man on the moon, the Global Apollo Programme has a clear goal, in this case to make electricity from solar and wind cheaper than power from coal in every country and to do so within a decade.
BP Plc coined the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.” The new industry mantra might be “Beyond Oil and Into Gas.” Oh, and while we’re at it, “Down With Coal.”
Consider Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s recent $70 billion acquisition of BG Group Plc -- clearly a huge bet that natural gas will prove to be its cash cow of the future.
The petroleum industry’s move toward gas is hardly new -- the hydraulic fracturing shale revolution is in its second decade, after all.
Still, Shell’s move is an emphatic confirmation that some among the Big Oil family firmly believe gas will play a growing role in meeting the energy demand of emerging countries such as China and India that are trying to move away from dirtier coal.
More than four fifths of the world’s coal reserves cannot be burned if global temperatures are to stay below dangerous levels, a new study has suggested.
A third of oil and more than half of gas reserves must also stay in the ground up to 2050 if the world is to limit temperature rises to 2C to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change, research by experts from University College London showed.
Coal will remain an important contributor to the UK's energy mix into the mid-2020s at least, a Scottish supplier says.
Fergusson Group's forecast came as it reported increased sales in its most recent financial year in the face of "challenging market conditions across the energy sector".
