On Monday Britain’s last coal-fired power station will spew vapour from its massive towers for the last time.
When it shuts it will end 142 years of coal in Britain, which began here:
This is Britain’s first coal power station, opened in 1882 in the incongruous setting of a London townhouse, by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the lightbulb.
Coal was king.
In 1920 virtually all of Britain’s electricity was produced by burning coal.
Today, after advances in wind and solar power, it accounts for almost nothing:
On Monday next week, that will be it. Britain will become the first rich nation in the world to quit coal.
This is the story of how we got here — and what comes next.
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