U.K., home of the industrial revolution, shuts its last coal-fired power plant

Britain was a country powered by coal. Now it’s the first G-7 nation to quit it. In a matter of hours, the boilers at the Ratcliffe plant will cool to the touch.


A freight train passes the cooling towers at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in Nottinghamshire, England on Sept. 17. (Gabriella Demczuk for The Washington Post)

8 min
By William Booth
September 29, 2024 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

RATCLIFFE-ON-SOAR, England — If you are looking for a signal event, a real ping, to mark humanity’s journey to slow global climate change, this is a thing.

On Monday, the very last coal-powered electricity plant in Britain is closing.
The coal age is over in the country that sparked the industrial revolution 200 years ago.

In a matter of hours, the boilers at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station — each the height of a 12-story building — will cool to the touch. The fireballs of pulverized coal that created the steam will go dark. The four 500-megawatt turbines will cease their once ceaseless spinning.

And the remnants of a once towering mountain of coal that powered the plant for 57 years will be a layer of dust ready to be swept away.

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Robert Marshall and the other plant workers are shepherding the end of Britain's coal era. (Gabriella Demczuk for The Washington Post)

By William Booth
William Booth is The Washington Post’s London bureau chief. He was previously bureau chief in Jerusalem, Mexico City, Los Angeles and Miami.follow on X @boothwilliam