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The European Union saw a record drop in pollution from fossil fuel power plants last year, according to a new report. Ember, an energy think tank that crunched the numbers, calls it \u201can unprecedented collapse in coal and gas electricity generation.\u201d Renewable energy is finally starting to take over the power grid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Fossil fuels dropped to their lowest point since reliable record-keeping started in 1990, making up less than a third of EU\u2019s electricity generation in 2023. Carbon-pollution-free power generation \u2014 which includes renewables and nuclear energy \u2014 made up more than two-thirds of the electricity mix, and twice as much as fossil fuels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAn unprecedented collapse in coal and gas electricity generation.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s encouraging is it\u2019s just continuing that structural decline in fossil fuels,\u201d says Sarah Brown, Ember\u2019s Europe program director. And while records started in 1990, she says, \u201cWe think it\u2019s the lowest point ever, because before that fossil fuels were making up the majority and there wasn\u2019t anything else to replace it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Coal saw the steepest fall in 2023, generating 26 percent less electricity than the year before. Gas power plants produced 15 percent less electricity last year, the sharpest annual reduction in at least a few decades. All in all, that meant a hefty 19 percent reduction in both fossil fuel generation and planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions. It\u2019s an even bigger drop in power sector pollution than the bloc experienced in 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic shut down business and travel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Coal generation was already starting to decline in the EU until the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to a comeback for coal as countries moved to wean themselves off Russian gas. Now, it looks like the resurgence was a short-lived trend. Coal generation is half of what it was in 2016 and is on track to be phased out completely, Brown says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Renewables now make up 44 percent of the electricity mix in the EU, the highest share to date. Wind energy in particular soared in 2023, which generated 18 percent of electricity \u2014 or the equivalent of France\u2019s entire power demand \u2014 and surpassed gas for the first time.\u00a0Solar grew to 9 percent of the mix, while hydropower generation recovered from 2022 dry spells.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
An often unsung hero in this story is energy efficiency. Electricity demand actually fell by 3.4 percent in 2023, thanks in part to efficiency gains. Moving forward, electrifying cars and homes is forecast to push demand back up again. That just makes it all the more important to prioritize energy efficiency and bring more solar and wind farms online.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
There\u2019s still a lot of progress to be made. Wind generation grew by 13 percent in 2023, but it needs to keep rising by 15 percent every year this decade to meet EU clean energy goals, the report says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[ad_1] The European Union saw a record drop in pollution from fossil fuel power plants last year, according to a new report. Ember, an energy think tank that crunched the numbers, calls it \u201can unprecedented collapse in coal and gas electricity generation.\u201d Renewable energy is finally starting to take over the power grid. Fossil fuels …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}