The case for coal

Whisper it, but it is becoming clear that the UK is going to have to start building coal-fire power stations again.

The reality is that we now face a very real risk of blackouts in the next few years. The warning signs are already flashing red. At the start of 2025 there was a (very) “near miss”, when, in the middle of a “dunkelflaute” — a period in which both solar and wind are generating essentially nothing — grid managers found themselves left with no reserve capacity. A fault on a single power station anywhere on the system could have forced them to impose rolling blackouts.

We should discount official claims that everything is fine. Those who watch these things closely understand that NESO has a dangerously lackadaisical approach to electricity grid security. While the gas grid is expected to withstand a 1-in-50-year cold winter, our power system is only required to withstand an “average cold spell”. That simply isn’t good enough.

A shortage of reliable generation capacity to see us through the winter is not the only threat. Grid insiders warn that a combination of low consumer demand and high proportions of renewables in the generation mix is destabilising the grid in the summer months too. Get this wrong and the whole country could lose power. This was exactly what happened with last year’s Iberian blackout. 

As the Spanish and Portuguese know to their cost, blackouts bring economic and social chaos, and even death. A dozen direct fatalities have been identified across the Iberian peninsula, and statistical analyses suggest that more than a hundred premature deaths may have resulted.

So we really, really don’t want blackouts. Unfortunately, Ed Miliband is more relaxed about grid security. In fact, he wants more renewables on the grid, despite the fact that it is wind and solar that have got us to this sorry state in the first place.

What we actually need is more firm capacity — which is to say real power stations — and because as much of a third of our existing reliable generation capacity is due to be retired over the next few years, we need it very quickly.

That rules out nuclear, which is notorious for very long lead times (and troubled construction and epic cost overruns to boot). Hopes are therefore generally pinned on delivering a new generation of gas-fired power stations, but these turn out to be equally problematic. The AI revolution has led to a wave of new datacentres being constructed across the world, and demand for the gas turbines that will power them has soared. The industry hasn’t been able to keep up, and lead times for new turbines are said to be between four and seven years. Add on the time required for new power stations to clear the UK’s burdensome permitting process and gas turbines stop looking like any part of the solution.

In other words, coal is the only option on the table.

We are not alone. America has just announced that it is going to build new coal plants, Germany and Italy have already announced plans to reopen mothballed ones, and the black stuff is seeing a resurgence across Asia. Our situation is much more difficult though, the last government having decided to demolish rather than mothball coal plants.

We should note in passing that modern coal plants are extremely clean

Coal-fired power stations are anathema to the climate cult, of course. When I mentioned the possibility of its return to the UK grid in a public forum last year there were audible gasps from the green contingent in the audience.

But there is simply no choice. We must have more firm power.

We should note in passing that modern coal plants are extremely clean — China’s standards for ultra-low emissions coal are far, far tighter than what the UK allows the Drax biomass plant to pump out. Coal is nowadays also very efficient and therefore surprisingly cheap to run. 

Moreover, because the fuel is easy to store, coal has important energy and national security advantages. Better still, the UK has vast unexploited resources, albeit now mostly only accessible through deep mining. In an increasingly unstable world, a rehabilitation of coal-fired power starts to look less like a long-shot and more like a no-brainer.

However, these are rational considerations, and rationality is in short supply across society. So it’s hard to imagine that the climate cult, which dominates every institution of society, will willingly accept the return of coal-fired power, or indeed pretty much anything that could keep the lights on.

So even if we do manage to elect a government that wants to change direction, it will be fought every step of the way. What chance do we really have to get the reforms required through the House of Lords, packed to the gunwales with eco-warriors? I’d hazard a guess that even if we are getting blackouts, they would still try to prevent change. They are that mad, that dangerous.

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Andrew Montford’s report on the possibility of a return to coal-fired power can be read here.