The image is of https://grid.iamkate.com/, although there are a hundred similar sites providing the same data
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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Casual UK
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It's a weird one because while electricity prices being derived from gas increases prices, it also encourages renewables. Renewables are cheaper, therefore the profit margin is higher if you're selling at gas pricing levels.
It's resulted in the UK switching to renewables at a shockingly rapid rate for a large economy.
But it will also eventually lead to a perverse incentive to keep some gas production, or else our energy prices would be based on another generation method.
Plus, as mentioned, it's meant higher prices.
It will need to change, I'm just not educated enough to know when. I imagine it's just an arbitrary balancing act of energy prices and incentivising renewables.
Given that coal usage seems to alternate between 20% and 10% of the energy makes I would say we're not far off from being able to totally back off coal. The problem isn't really technical it's political. The fossil fuel industry has put a lot of money into both reform and the conservatives in order to disincentivize them from shutting down all old fossil fuel power plants.
Coal ranges between 10-20%? Uhh are you looking at past data? Or data for another country? The UK is already off coal.
In the past 12 months, coal has been 0.0% of our generation.
The last time coal made up even 10% was in 2016, by 2018 it was 5%, and by 2019 it was extinct aside from during storms when stations were brought online temporarily.
Gas too has been steadily dropping since 2016, going from 13.5GW of generation to 8.9GW in the past 12 months.
The UK is genuinely doing a very very good job in transitioning away from fossil fuel. Especially for a large economy with high power demands.
I'm looking at averages for the top 10 economies. UK still uses a stupid amount of gas which I suppose is mildly better than cold but still basically a fossil fuel so everything I just said is still true
Using that average in a discussion about the UK is very disingenuous, considering we don't use coal anymore.
It's not mildly better, it's hugely better. I think you're underestimating how awful coal is. Gas is in the region of 60% less emissions than coal, and that's not even including other aspects such as sulphur dioxide and particulate emissions.
Not really. We've already established that the coal line was nonsense, we've established that gas isn't "mildly" better, and like I said, gas is dropping substantially every year.
Your assertion that we still have fossil fuels due to lobbying is nonsensical too. We still have fossil fuels because it is impossible to switch to renewables overnight. Even the UK's astoundingly fast shift away from coal took years. It's not just a switch you can flip off. Gas, just like coal is quickly decreasing in the UK.
It doesn't even make sense to say energy companies are lobbying to stick with fossil fuels in the UK, as it's literally less profitable for them. The UK is just too perfectly suited for wind for fossil fuel electricity generation to make make much sense as a thing to lobby for.
Huh, that's interesting