Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times.
Vattenfall is a Swedish multinational power company owned by the Swedish state. Beyond Sweden, the company generates power in Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
South Chungcheong Province, also known as Chungnam, is a province of South Korea in the Hoseo region in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. South Chungcheong borders the provinces of Gyeonggi to the north, North Chungcheong, Sejong Special Self-governing City, and Daejeon Metropolitan City to the east, and North Jeolla to the south.
National Grid plc is a British multinational electricity and gas utility company headquartered in London, England. Its principal activities are in the United Kingdom, where it owns and operates electricity and natural gas transmission networks, and in the Northeastern United States, where as well as operating transmission networks, the company produces and supplies electricity and gas, providing both to customers in New York and Massachusetts.
Many countries and territories have installed significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources. Solar power plants use one of two technologies:
Coal is mined in every state of Australia. The largest black coal resources occur in Queensland and New South Wales. About 70% of coal mined in Australia is exported, mostly to eastern Asia, and of the balance most is used in electricity generation. In 2019-20 Australia exported 390 Mt of coal and was the world's largest exporter of metallurgical coal and second largest exporter of thermal coal. While only employing 50,000 mining jobs nationally coal provides a rich revenue stream for governments.
For solar power, South Asia has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation and a high density of potential customers.
A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide there are over 2,400 coal-fired power stations, totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a third of the world's electricity, but cause many illnesses and the most early deaths, mainly from air pollution.
Fossil fuel phase-out is the gradual reduction of the use and production of fossil fuels to zero, to reduce deaths and illness from air pollution, limit climate change, and strengthen energy independence. It is part of the ongoing renewable energy transition, but is being hindered by fossil fuel subsidies.
Coal reserves in Canada rank 13th largest in the world at approximately 10 billion tons, 0.6% of the world total. This represents more energy than all of the oil and gas in the country combined. The coal industry generates CDN$5 billion annually. Most of Canada's coal mining occurs in the West of the country. British Columbia operates 9 coal mines, Alberta nine, Saskatchewan three and New Brunswick one. Nova Scotia operates several small-scale mines, Westray having closed following the 1992 disaster there.
China is the world's largest electricity producer, having overtaken the United States in 2011 after rapid growth since the early 1990s. In 2021, China produced 8.5 petawatt-hour (PWh) of electricity, approximately 30% of the world's electricity production.
India is the world's 4th largest consumer of electricity and the world's 3rd largest renewable energy producer with 40% of energy capacity installed in the year 2022 coming from renewable sources. Ernst & Young's (EY) 2021 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI) ranked India 3rd behind USA and China. In FY2023-24, India is planning to issue 50 GW tenders for wind, solar and hybrid projects. India has committed for a goal of 500 GW renewable energy capacity by 2030. In line with this commitment, India's installed renewable energy capacity has been experiencing a steady upward trend. From 94.4 GW in 2021, the capacity has gone up to 119.1 GW in 2023 as of Q4.
Coal phase-out is an environmental policy intended to stop burning coal in coal-fired power plants and elsewhere, and is part of fossil fuel phase-out. Coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, therefore phasing it out is critical to limiting climate change as laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that coal is responsible for over 30% of the global average temperature increase above pre-industrial levels. Some countries in the Powering Past Coal Alliance have already stopped.
Germany's electrical grid is part of the Synchronous grid of Continental Europe. In 2020, due to COVID-19 conditions and strong winds, Germany produced 484 TW⋅h of electricity of which over 50% was from renewable energy sources, 24% from coal, and 12% from natural gas. This is the first year renewables represented more than 50% of the total electricity production and a major change from 2018, when a full 38% was from coal, only 40% was from renewable energy sources, and 8% was from natural gas.
The Electricity Generation Company is the largest electric power company in Turkey. Owned by the government, it produces and trades electricity throughout the country.
An energy transition is a significant structural change in an energy system regarding supply and consumption. Currently, a transition to sustainable energy is underway to limit climate change. It is also called renewable energy transition. The current transition is driven by a recognition that global greenhouse-gas emissions must be drastically reduced. This process involves phasing-down fossil fuels and re-developing whole systems to operate on low carbon electricity. A previous energy transition took place during the industrial revolution and involved an energy transition from wood and other biomass to coal, followed by oil and most recently natural gas.
The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of more than 120 signatory countries, most being sunshine countries, which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The primary objective of the alliance is to work for the efficient consumption of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. This initiative was first proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech in November 2015 at Wembley Stadium, in which he referred to sunshine countries as Suryaputra. The alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental organization. Countries that do not fall within the Tropics can join the alliance and enjoy all benefits as other members, with the exception of voting rights.
The 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23) was an international meeting of political leaders, non-state actors and activists to discuss environmental issues. It was held at UN Campus in Bonn, Germany, during 6–17 November 2017. The conference incorporated the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the thirteenth meeting of the parties for the Kyoto Protocol (CMP13), and the second session of the first meeting of the parties for the Paris Agreement.
Green recovery packages are proposed environmental, regulatory, and fiscal reforms to rebuild prosperity in the wake of an economic crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). They pertain to fiscal measures that intend to recover economic growth while also positively benefitting the environment, including measures for renewable energy, efficient energy use, nature-based solutions, sustainable transport, green innovation and green jobs, amongst others.
The South Korean government plans to grow the renewable energy sector in the country. The country plans to use 20 percent renewable energy by 2030. The new plan will include a goal of 35 percent renewable energy by 2040. In the past, coal and nuclear power have been the pillars of South Korea's development. The country has long been one of the largest users of nuclear energy, but the liberal government, led by President Moon Jae In, decided to phase it out by 2057, fearing for its safety.
