Coal power stations are polluting and expensive, and the falling cost of clean energy is pushing the dirty fossil fuel to the brink of extinction, a report has found.
Analysis showed installing environmentally-friendly energy sources, such as wind and solar farms, is cheaper than the running costs of 39 per cent of global coal stations.
Experts predict that if the global coal fleet was replaced with renewables, then the world economy could see a net saving as soon as 2022.
By 2025, the world could save $105billion (£85billion) a year if coal was replaced, the study reveals.
A group of experts penned the study to outline how the world can phase out the use of coal while still recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.
They scrutinised nearly 2,500 coal plants around the world to see which ones are no longer competitive when compared with the cost of building clean energy sources to replace them.
Findings indicate the energy industry is now at a crossroads as coal power is approaching a financial ‘tipping-point’.
‘The cost of renewables has fallen so far that it is already cheaper to build new renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, than to continue operating 39 percent of the world’s existing coal capacity,’ the report states.
This figure is predicted to rise to 60 per cent in 2022 and to 73 per cent in 2025.
Analysis from the Rocky Mountain Institute found that 81 per cent of the EU’s coal-powered plants are already more expensive to run than it would be to build new clean energy solutions.
By 2025, with it becoming constantly cheaper to build clean energy sources, this figure will rise to 100 per cent.
In five years’ time, if the EU was to switch off all coal power stations and instead turn to renewables, it could save a total of $21billion a year, the study claims.
China and India would also make enormous savings if they were to make the transition in the next five years, saving 97 and 15 billion US dollars annually, respectively.
In contrast, due in part to President Trump abandoning the Paris Agreement and prioritising his country’s mining industry, the US would save $9billion a year if it switched entirely to coal this year.
However, if this is delayed until 2025, it will actually come at a cost of $7billion a year, the report claims.
‘A faster transition from coal to clean energy is within our grasp, and we show how to engineer that transition in ways that will save money for electricity customers around the world while aiding a just transition for workers and communities,’ said Paul Bodnar, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The 2015 Paris climate deal enjoins nations to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. it also has a more ambitious target of 1.5°C, which it says would be a much more ideal scenario.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that for the 1.5°C goal to be obtainable, global coal use must decline by 80 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030.
The report authors say this analysis is solely focused on financials and does not account the environmental and health impacts of coal.
National Grid went TWO MONTHS without using coal
‘Coal power is quickly facing economic obsolescence, independent of carbon pricing and air pollution policies,’ said Matt Gray, managing director and co-head of power and utilities at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which was involved in the study.
‘Closing coal capacity and replacing it with lower cost alternatives will not only save consumers and taxpayers money, but could also play a major role in the upcoming economic recovery.’
Earlier this month, Britain extended its record for being coal-free to more than two months.
Midnight on June 9 marked exactly 61 days (or 1,464 hours) since the last coal generator was active.
Before this unprecedented coal-free spell, the previous record was 18 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes.
During a record-breaking May, renewable sources accounted for 28 per cent of all energy production, on average.
Solar and wind produced 11.45 and 15.87 per cent of Britain’s energy last month, respectively, while hydro added a further 0.69 per cent.
Eco-friendly biomass energy production contributed a further 8.75 per cent. Nuclear – which produces no greenhouse gases – churned out 22.96 per cent of all energy.
However, the biggest single contributor was natural gas, with 30.06 per cent of total output from this source.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel and does produce greenhouse gases, however it is less damaging to the environment than coal.
The final chunk of British energy production (10.22 per cent) was imported from mainland Europe.
Source: Dailymail
