Half UK's electricity zero carbon

Not long after the news that Germany has reached 47% renewables, and 60% nuclear plus renewables in its electricity grid comes the news that this year the UK will pass a tipping point where less than 50% of its electricity generation will come from fossil fuels:

Zero-carbon energy sources are poised to overtake fossil fuels as the UK’s largest electricity source over a full calendar year.

This year will be the first that fossil fuels make up less than half of the electricity generated, according to National Grid, following a dramatic decline in coal-fired power and rising renewable energy.

Instead, UK homes and businesses will rely more on clean electricity generated by wind farms, solar panels, hydro power and nuclear power reactors.

A decade ago, coal plants generated almost a third of the UK’s electricity, but in the first half of this year they have provided only 3%.

In the same period renewable energy has climbed from supplying just 2% of the UK’s power to a fifth of all electricity produced.

The “landmark tipping point” is an “historic achievement” in the UK’s journey towards becoming a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, said National Grid.

John Pettigrew, the UK power system operator’s chief executive, said: “The incredible progress that Britain has made in the past 10 years means we can now say 2019 will be the year zero-carbon power beats fossil fuel-fired generation for the first time.”

“We wouldn’t have said it if we weren’t confident that this will be the year.”

National Grid is able to confidently predict the 2019 record only six months into the year following the UK’s greenest ever winter, and the huge number of coal-free days recorded since then.

[Read more here]

Source: The Guardian

Germany and the UK are, respectively, the world's fifth and sixth largest economies.  Meanwhile, California, which if it were a separate economy, would be almost as big as Germany or the UK, is targeting 60% zero-carbon electricity by 2030, and reached 48% zero-carbon in its grid in 2018, if you  include nuclear and hydro (it's closing down its last nuclear power station because it's too costly, hence the relatively slow rise over the next 11 years).

UK, Germany and California make up 12% of world GDP.  They're transitioning to renewables without fuss, without any adverse effects on living standards or growth rates, step by inevitable step. 

Why can't Australia with its huge solar and wind resources do the same?  Because the right-wing parties in Oz are in the grip of a collective delusion.  For them, neo-liberal theories and the mad drivel from dotty right-wing "think-tanks" makes more sense than facts, science, and technology.  Reducing emissions is for them giving in to "leftist" environmentalists.  The mere act of co-operation with other countries is considered "socialism".  It doesn't matter that renewables are far cheaper than coal—they'll oppose them just because it irks the Left.  Conservatives used to be the pragmatists, the ones who faced up to facts, who eschewed dogma and theory.   No longer.  Now they are the wild-eyed theorists, the batty revolutionaries, the spittle-flecked ranters.

Sad.