Britain's last coal power - Ratcliffe on Soar power station 

Of-course they will demolish the towers. Everything will be demolished and given over to housing and business. Nothing will remain just like all the others that have been decommissioned and demolished. It will be like it was never there

I used to walk my dog along a disused railway and it was crossed by a power line on pylons which hung pretty low. You could feel the electricity in the air, or that's how it seemed.

It would indeed be wise to mothball the site, Germany are certainly relieved that they have an opportunity to return to reliable energy. Australia didn't have many more in total than the number that Germany are resurrecting. Another of our coal-fired power plants is due to be shut down in April and blown up next year. And we don't have nuclear or the luxury of nearby interconnectors.

You have got to remember, that most if not all governments have very little in the way of common sense and looking to the future, they are the dunces running our lives....

HS2 will stop there.

Emitting up to 10 million tons of CO2 annually is madness

@@cameronsteele7289 There is far more C02 produced in the cradle to grave story of 'green' energy. Most of it is not declared. The shipping alone which has massively increased as a direct result of green energy must be taken into consideration. Shipping is one of the highest contributors to anthropogenic C02. Raw material, which have already created large amounts of C02 to be mined, has to be shipped to different parts of the globe to be processed. Rare earth processing creates not only C02 but a huge amount of black toxic sludge which is problematic to dispose of and contains varying levels of radiation. All mining has increased significantly as a direct result of green energy, particularly coal. The processed materials are then shipped off to the manufacturer where further C02 is created. Coal is essential not just for the coal-fired power plants in China, where almost all green infrastructure is built nowadays, but also for the coal-fired furnaces to make silicon ingots and as an actual 'ingredient' for manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels. The manufacture of silicon ingots to make the wafers used in crystalline silicon solar panels requires three thermal processes. Just one of the thermal processes utilises coal-fired furnaces and requires the heat to be held at 1100C for five days. They make billions of these solar panels. Half of the resulting silicon ingot is lost when sawn into wafers. They are then polished in acid solutions. There is large amounts of problematic toxic waste in the manufacture of so called green energy, farmland has been poisoned. Do you honestly believe that anyone could get a hold of accurate C02 audits of all this? The manufactured 'green' infrastructure is shipped out across the globe where in then needs to be transported in huge trucks to its destination. The government here in Australia has decided that our region is a great place to stick up Ruinables and we are 300 kilometres from the port. They are halfway through the planning process and up to 700 turbines just for our region. That doesn't take into account the tens of millions of solar panels. All this will take thousands of trucks journeys to and from the port. That's just to transport the infrastructure! Do you really think the developers are keeping track of C02 emissions? Industrial solar is only commercially viable for a little more than 20 years, wind is less than that and batteries less again. So within around twenty years the whole process has to be repeated. Less than that in reality because the replacement infrastructure needs to be operational before the old system is decommissioned. The old wind and solar sites are meant to be decommissioned within a certain time frame. Who polices this? No one even talks about who is responsible for the clean-up. Who pays for it? We were told by a developer that it would take almost as long to dismantle the project and rehabilitate the land as it did to build it, which in this case is 34 months to install the infrastructure. So even being conservative, it will take more than five years to build and dismantle a project that will only last approximately 20 years. How much C02 will be created in all this? We are not told the truth. The figures we are given are from proponents of renewables so you know that most of it won't be included, and they are quoting C02 figures from products once made in Europe where nuclear energy would have been used. As in Australia, the C02 emissions output from the UK is around 1% of the anthropogenic total. That has come at great cost to the UK in regards to loss of manufacturing and the resulting energy crisis, we are heading in the same direction. The anthropogenic contribution to the global total C02 emissions to is 3%. Your country is responsible for 1% of that 3%. Why would you attempt to reduce it further when China is producing 30% of that 3%. Your C02 emissions are not doing anything to affect climate/weather, they are already in fact too low. China is contributing close to a full percentage of the global total! As with Australia, yours barely registers. But the fact is, C02 has not reduced in any single country, they have simply exported it to China. The manufacture of renewables is a criminal waste of raw materials for a product that is short lived and can produce energy on average for only 30% of the time. On top of that without backup you have no reliable energy. We have been sold a massive lie so that obscenely rich people can gain more wealth and power. They are robbing us of power in more ways than one. In the process there is grave environmental damage being done.

@@cameronsteele7289 but the irony is we are closing it to just depend on gas and then imported LNG not renewables or nuclear..

@@cameronsteele7289 You enjoy paying ridiculous high energy bills then?

@@cameronsteele7289 There is about 420 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere today (that is, 0.042%). 1 ppm is 7.8 Giga tonnes. 10 Mte CO2 is 1/780th of 1 ppm. The madness is the indoctrination of climate cultism which will seriously hurt people when these things are closed for no good reason.

To ruin the environment?

@@CORNERofTECH once you understand the difference in energy capacity and efficiency, the trade off between coal and wind and solar very clear. Coal power actually takes up far less land than renewables for an equivalent output of energy and gives you reliable power 24/7 for many years. Renewables need far more land so destroy far more of the environment including wildlife and can produce energy on average over a year for only 30% of the time without backup. On top of that the lifespan of renewables is not much more than 20 years for industrial scale solar installations and less than that for the rest.

@@margaretarmstrong2445 What about geothermal, nuclear, wave, tidal?

@@CORNERofTECH Australia isn't suitable for geothermal, we wasted 90 million dollars on it decades ago without success. Countries like Iceland use it successfully, they have the volcanic activity that we just don't have. I don't know the lifespan of geothermal energy generators. I know nothing of the efficiency of wave driven energy, the material requirements to build, the efficiency or the lifespan which often determines if they are cost effective. We are also not well suited to hydro electricity of which we have very little. The geography doesn't lend to this form of energy in many places here and neither does the fact that we suffer severe drought periodically. We are currently adding to one of our few hydroelectricity schemes to create pumped hydro. What a debacle that is. This project was approved in 2015 at a predicted cost of 2 billion dollars and was supposed to be completed last year. The cost has blown out to 12 to 14 billion and at least up until last week it was expected to be completed in 2028. The tunnel connecting the two reservoirs is 27 kilometres long and last week the tunnelling machine hit a sand cave which collapsed in on the machinery. A few days ago they were talking about the potential for the cost to blow out to 20 billion dollars and who knows when it might be finished. Even when it is completed, a long drought will be problematic. And though it's built in one of the few places in Australia that receives regular snowfall, it's only during the winter months so unlike places with very high mountains there isn't year-round snowmelt to feed it. So don't throw pumped hydro around as an easy storage solution. A past prime minister, in his wisdom, put in place a moratorium against nuclear energy many years ago. Most Australians would love to see that lifted. Nuclear power is the highest density form of energy on the planet. Clean, reliable energy delivered 24/7 without the need for backup or new transmission lines and lasting as much as eighty years. Despite the propaganda and the movies that were made, nuclear power has a high safety rating and few people have lost they lives to it. Modern nuclear plant engineers have learnt from past accidents and have put in place even more stringent safety measures. SMR's (Small Modular Reactors) are happening now, though sadly not here. They take up a fraction of the land of wind and solar and are less obtrusive. The waste can be recycled for other uses where the depleted uranium suits the requirements. But there is far more toxic waste produced from wind, solar and backup batteries, and it is already becoming problematic. No, Australia is shutting down 5 coal-fired power plants in the next decade, two of them this year. And they tend to blow them up here. So wind, solar and backup batteries, if there are enough resources and we can afford them, will be all we have. They are already warning us to expect extended blackouts from 2027. I think it will be sooner than that. Australia is screwed, by design.

@@margaretarmstrong2445 I’m talking about the UK here. I appreciate you writing all of this out. The sooner Hinkley Point C is built, the better.

really bad mix

Yes, agree music would benefit turning down.

Once B has gone but Fiddlers is still there.

I'd love to cover the nuclear projects, but there's a 2 mile drone exclusion zone around them for security reasons and I don't think you can even apply for permission!

@@martinalooksatthings maybe UK nuclear police would offer drone footage for media purposes. But the UK has 3 LNG terminals like dragon in Wales which is important for our energy security Redcar steel remains and port Talbot are interesting industrial sites

It feels like these days they're pretty strict about sending people back to their seats and strapping in at least 10-15 minutes before landing sounds like a pretty different time

These days they're not allowed to land the plane till everybody is strapped in

That’s the problem we need at least 3 or 4 coal power plants online to keep sufficient energy supply

It’s happening. The last Coal Train ran at the end of June 2024. Labour Government now in.

It's water vapour ('steam'), some of the hot water pumped into them evaporates, and that cools down the water that doesn't evaporate, which is reused.

😅👍

I think in most (or all?) of the UK the hot stuff is too deep down for it to work

Thankfully this one is a relic now, I'm glad I got some footage of it running before it inevitably closes

It burns wood pellets

With today's technology, they can greatly reduce the pollution and emissions from a coal fired power station, one technology that particular power station has, is Selective Catalytic reduction technology which removes nitrogen oxides (NOx) from flue gas emitted by power station boilers and other combustion sources. Of course we'd all like nuclear Fusion power stations to produce 24/7 reliable electric just as coal fired ones have for a very long time, but we're decades away from the technology maturing enough for fusion power stations to be built and mainstream. Renewables, such as Solar, Wind, hydro etc... won't provide anywhere near enough power for us all, so they'll need other forms of power generation to bridge that gap, and avoid power outages and our country grinding to a halt as a result. The national grid barely manages at the best of times, we need more generation, not less. I think we need a diverse range of power generation methods/fuels, and the same with fuel as a whole, In vehicles for example, I believe that Electricity simply can't fully replace Petrol and diesel like for like, as we just can't produce enough of it in our country, Instead we need a variety of different alternative fuels, like fully Synthetic carbon neutral liquid fuels, fuels made from waste, biomass, Hydrogen, as well as electricity.

yes coal ash is a problem , my grandad died in his 50s mining glorious coal. Im 59 and as my father in law worked all his life with the CEGB we watched them all go over 40 yrs.

Hell no

@@justaguyfromreddit Hell yes

Nuclear is better

Drax burns biomass now, I think it's Canadian sawdust pellets

@@ABunchOfSpanners C02 is not a pollutant, rather it's an essential element of life. Australia's C02 contribution, and I believe the UK's also is a little more than 1% of the total anthropogenic contribution of 3%. The output of C02 is therefore, at least in our case, a tiny fraction of the total anthropogenic contribution. In the total global output of 100% our contribution to C02 would barely register. If you consider C02 a problem however China emits around 30% of anthropogenic emissions, almost a third of all man-made emissions or getting close to 1% of total global emissions. Most of the wind turbines, solar panels and backup batteries utilised on the planet are now made in China. And in reference to your C02 comparison of coal and renewables, surely you don't think that there is less coal used as a result of going down the renewables track? Coal is a necessary ingredient in the manufacture of steel. Metallurgical grade coal is also an 'ingredient' in the manufacture of silicon ingots for crystalline silicon solar panels. That along with mined quartz, hardwood timber and charcoal. The manufacture of the silicon ingots requires three thermal processes, one of which requires the coal-fired furnaces to be held at 1100C for five days. After all that half of the silicon ingot is lost when sawn into silicon wafers. The wafers are then polished with acid solutions. Billions of these solar panels are being manufactured. The life cycle of renewables creates an extraordinary amount of C02 most of whichis not recorded. Mining of 82% of all mined materials, particularly coal has increased on a massive scale as a direct result of the production of 'green' infrastructure. The materials are mined in many countries across the planet and shipped around the globe to countries who are will to accept the toxic waste that comes with processing it. The processed materials are then shipped to the manufacturer where more C02 and toxic waste is created, the next step is shipping the finished product to far off destinations. Shipping today is at the highest levels of the history of the industry, it is also one of the greatest contributors to the rise in anthropogenic C02. But the contribution to C02 does not end at the port. The renewables projects here in Australia are massive. Our country will require thousands of wind turbines, billions of solar panels and and unknown quantity of backup batteries. Our particular location is three hundred kilometres from the port. Each turbine requires two heavy vehicles to transport each of the three blade as well as support vehicles. That's just for the blades. Just one project near us will have 70 to 80 heavy truck movements every day and up 130 during peak build. That's every day for the life of the project which is expected to last for three years. That doesn't include small vehicles. We have 32 projects in the planning stages at the moment and we are only just over the halfway mark of the total required infrastructure. This infrastructure is short lived, produces energy for only 30% of the time on average each year that it's capacity is reducing. It cannot exist without the backup of fossil fuels. If what I have said to you hasn't painted a more realistic picture of just how much C02 renewables are responsible for, then you need to take into consideration that it doesn't end there. At end of life it all needs to be undone and we've been told that it will likely take almost as long to take it all down as it did to put it up. More large vehicles over a long period of time. More C02, more toxic waste. You must know how big these things are. What will happen to them? They are being buried in many countries, or simply abandoned because there was never a plan for end of life. This infrastructure is being installed on prime agricultural land here in Australia. Australia has a total of only 6% arable land. Is this where this infrastructure will be buried too? Rural communities are being torn apart here. This doesn't even take into consideration the horrific humanitarian issues in regard to the production of renewables. Did you know that 40,000 children are working in the artisanal copper and cobalt mines in Africa? The adults are earning only a few dollars a day. This infrastructure is cheap off the back of slave labour and taking advantage of third world countries. Coal mines and coal-fired power plants take up a fraction of the land as opposed to renewables and provide reliable energy 24/7. They will do far less damage to the environment over their lifetime and modern HELE coal-fired have reduced emissions considerably. They also have to put up a bond towards end of life decommissioning and land rehabilitation which wind and solar are not required to do. Nuclear energy would be the way to go in reality if people really are worried about C02. They also produce far less toxic waste than renewables and produce the highest density clean and reliable energy available to man.

@@ABunchOfSpanners The truth doesn't come in short bytes. Listening only to propaganda is easy but you don't learn anything.

What you say is so true, but our voices won't be listened to at least in the UK. I'm afraid we are locked into a dogma of extreme climate alarmism and bullshit that's nothing to do with common sense or statistics. When we next get a proper cold winter we are in real trouble and the hideous armies of white windmills across our green and pleasant land won't help much !

You are correct. This transition to renewables is more a transfer of wealth, as opposed to an investment in the future. The developers make their 'profits' from subsidies, our taxes. The infrastructure isn't fit for purpose and needs to be backed up so there are no further profits, just higher electricity prices. Not sure about GB but the average lifespan of commercial solar is only 21years in America, wind is less. You might be interested in my other comments.

@@margaretarmstrong2445 looks like you and I are on the same page, my thoughts are with those sitting in one room trying to keep warm under a blanket.

It would be fair to say that CCGT is more cost effective but both coal and gas should be kept in reserve while we turn to cleaner sources of power.

I’ve been hearing of concepts in the US to replace the boilers in these power stations with equally sized nuclear reactors, which would be even better, some of our power stations like Aberthaw and Fiddlers Ferry would’ve been perfect for this conversion, being next to large bodies of water, but they’re still being pulled down regardless. Alas, I do hope the three R’s are applied with West Burton when they finally get around to sticking a Fusion reactor there. Also, I wonder if those plans you worked on are within the public domain and can be accessed. I would love to see them 😊

Why?