No Coal, No Problem – Hope For A Green Future

The ninth episode of series three of the historical drama The Crown depicts the miners' strike of 1972 which caused UK-wide blackouts. The miners picketed "power stations and all other sources of fuel supply" according to a 16 February 1972 BBC article. Of course, in those times "power stations" meant coal burning power plants. As recently as 10 years ago, 40% of the Britain's electricity still came from coal; however, as recently reported, at midnight on Wednesday 10 June 2020 Britain went a full two months without burning coal to generate power.

In their Global Energy Review 2020, the IEA reported that the Covid-19 outbreak has "curtailed electricity use and industrial production in most countries, pushing down global coal consumption". The IEA estimated coal generated power declines across the globe ranging from a 5% decrease in China to a 25% decline in demand in the US and around 20% in the EU.