Europe beyond coal
According to TheMediTelegraph in Europe, renewables are sending coal to the attic, or almost. In fact, data in hand are making giant steps in the fight against coal and in the clean energy revolution and sustainable choices.
In fact, in the last five years the sources of renewable energy have increased, to the point of exceeding, during last 2017, the coal in terms of supply of energy produced.
According to Eurostat data, only 19% of European energy is now generated by solid fuels such as coal; another 24% is generated from sources such as natural gas and crude oil and the remainder is divided between renewables and nuclear.
Italy, for its part, along with other countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands, has announced, in the wake of France and Great Britain, the exit from coal by 2025, following the program of abandoning the old black fuel called Europe Beyond Coal, a project that aims to reach a Europe without coal by 2030 .
Coal power plants in Europe
From the CoalMap website you can read and see clearly where the approximately 250 European coal-fired power stations are located, five of which are in Italy. Mines and coal industries remain mainly active in South-east Europe, between Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey; but there are still some in Germany and Spain.
The European Union still has around 250 active coal-fired power plants, scattered in twenty different EU countries. The battle that sees on the front line now GreenPeace, with WWF that supports on other fronts, concerns in particular the power stations and coal mines of Kozienice, Europe's second largest plant, Turow, which is estimated to pollute drinking water of 30 thousand people, and finally the central pollutant in Opole .
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Against coal, to save lives
The energy transition is now evident : as the German agency Agora points out, which has worked in collaboration with the English Sandbag to collect data and develop reports, renewables and alternative sources are in full overtaking on coal .
But not all that glitters is gold : one of the problems that emerges is the job question : where will all the people of the plants that will close in the near future?
The Ansa agency underlined the issue a year ago, talking about the Spanish system.
The need is therefore strong, on the one hand, for the various states to face this emergency also from the economic point of view, through subsidies, European funds, environmental incentives and adequate public support.
