Heating The Planet Or Heating The People!

Gas shortages and soaring gas prices have left many countries with the choice of power cuts and no heating this winter or resorting to sources like #Coal power. This, of course, conflicts with pledges Governments made at #COP26 this year.

Many countries have decided to fire up old coal power generating plants. Faced with less power generation, most of us would have no hesitation in switching to a brown option this winter. Of course reverting back to coal, will increase the temperature of the planet and move us nearer to the critical tipping point, but in the here and now, it is human nature that heating our homes comes first!! I wonder how Maslow would have ranked this dilemma in his hierarchy of needs?

However, coal generators are “haemorrhaging cash” because they cannot compete with cheap renewables and gas in the longer term. According to reports by Carbon Tracker, the think-tank that compiled the report. “Unless there are dramatic changes, then these losses could be sustained.”

Four in five of Europe’s coal-fired power plants are unprofitable, with the potential for €6.6bn of losses in total for their owners this year.

In mainland Europe, coal-fired power has been hit by the…