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Burning ambition Britain's last coal-fired power station closes The end of an era On September 30th water vapour will rise from the eight giant cooling towers at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire for the final time. The closure of Britain's last coal-fired power plant is the end, in effect, of an industry that has played a critical role in shaping the country's economy over three centuries. It is also testament to a remarkably successful drive to stamp down on the dirtiest source of carbon emissions. The discovery of coal powered the Industrial Revolution. The world's first coal-fired power station began operating in London in 1882. When Britain first built out an electricity grid in the 1920s, it was the burning of coal that lit people's homes. As demand for electricity grew, many coal-fired plants, including the one in Ratcliffe-on-Soar, were built in the country's mining heartlands in the 1960s and 1970s. Britain's ability to shift away from coal was partly due to luck. The disco
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