The end of September saw the closure of the UK’s last remaining coal-fired power station: Ratcliffe-on-Soar. Environment Editor Adam Pickering reflects on the past and future of this instantly recognisable Nottinghamshire landmark, the conflicted feelings that surround it, and how it could be re-purposed in the years to come.
What feelings does the end of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, and the possible demolition of its iconic cooling towers, stir in you? Is it sadness and loss, or a sense of excitement and possibility for the future… a clean break from the past?
For people in Nottinghamshire and its surrounds, these towers are a beacon. A geographical marker for many, a totem of impending climate doom for some, and a historic symbol of industrial England. A mess of love, loathing, optimism and regret. A tangle of our past, present, and possible futures. These plain and brutal concrete structures aggregate meaning, history and hope.
Great Britain’s last coal-fired energy generation facility, Ratcliffe produced a sizeable 1% of the country’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. Its closure marks not just the end of a major industrial site but the end of the UK’s coal era, in a region shaped more than most by the sooty stuff. After September 30 2024, an island that birthed coal-fired power itself in 1882 becomes, when Ratcliffe is switched off, the first of the wealthy G7 nations to turn off the coal-fired lights - 142 years after switching them on for the very first time.
A destination for protest since at least the 1980s miners’ strike, Ratcliffe leaves a lasting impact on Britain's justice system, and the landscape of political power and protest. The site was a focus of some of environmental activism’s first major forays into communicating the catastrophic science of CO2 to the public. Here, we unearth the subterranean seams of state capitulation to the death cult of extractive capitalism and eternal growth on a finite planet.
The infamous Spy Cops scandal, in which local environmental activists whose Climate Camp attempted to symbolically shut down the power station, were targeted by undercover police - who also fathered children with activists under false identities - and the ongoing Undercover Policing Enquiry, is a tale set in these lands. For all the abuse suffered, these activists leave a heroic legacy that stretches beyond their initial goal. The closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar signals a tentative victory in the climate fight, offering some assurance that the fossil fuel economy is creaking, albeit slowly, to a halt.
Politics aside, the cooling towers that have watched over and provided us with literal power and light for over 56 years, as well as a cultural and physical landmark, are in danger of being demolished.
As the exploratory People vs Power (PVP) workshops hosted by creatives William Harvey and Ryan Boultby demonstrated, few in the local community actually want to see them torn down. Countless ideas for ways they can be given new creative or recreational leases of life have come forth, some even imagine how they could be turned into new, vibrant, floating, ecocentric (and yes, a little eccentric) communities.
“Today, the redevelopment of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station can incorporate more ideas from the community by slowing down the decision-making process. Halt the rapid redevelopment, creating time and space, re-think a moment of transition and ensure fair representation”, PvP says in the study’s closing remarks.
A local engineer, William Hendry-Prophet, is building a case for repurposing the site for closed looped geothermal energy generation: using heat from underground reservoirs. It’s mostly set up for it, he says, and of course well-connected to the grid. There is precedent internationally and the geology is being looked into, with ground explorations already undertaken by BP decades ago. Hendry-Prophet feels that it is a “huge waste to get rid of these cooling towers, and the site as a whole”, a construction which involved so many hours of labour and tonnes of concrete.
Our home is marked and scarred by these modern megaliths, yet somehow made more sacred by their presence in our skyline. To write such a short obituary for these world destroyers, totems of progress, providers in the most literal sense of jobs and power to so many, is impossible in words alone. The images here, from Long Eaton based photographer Steve Cole, will evoke far stronger feelings in local souls than words and facts.
Whatever the future holds for the site as its coal-burning days reach an end, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station’s light will keep shining. Like those familiar plumes, its legacy hangs thickly in the air - in the memories of those who worked there and lived their lives in its shadow, and beyond in the climate mess coal leaves behind.
Browse more photos by Steve Cole below or follow him on Flickr @KingNik
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