How coal production and use has changed in Europe

As the European Union (EU) adopts a new legislative framework to limit the effects of climate change, the use of coal as a source of energy on the continent is declining rapidly.

Between 1990 and 2020, hard coal production in the European Union fell 80% to 56 million tonnes, according to the latest data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office.

Hard coal is anthracite – the purest form of coal with the highest carbon content.

The number of EU member states producing this type of coal fell from 12 in 1990 to just two - Poland and The Czech Republic - in 2020.

Between 2018 and 2020, hard coal consumption in the EU fell by 35%.

“The reason for lower consumption of hard coal is the energy shift towards natural gas and renewables for electricity production,” Eurostat says.

Coke – a fuel used in iron and steel making – is also being produced in smaller quantities.

The data for hard coal doesn’t tell the full story. There’s also ‘brown coal’ – mostly lignite – the lowest grade coal with the least concentration of carbon. That’s falling out of favour too in Europe.

In 2020, the EU consumed an estimated 246 million tonnes of brown coal. That’s 33% less than in 2018 and 64% less than in 1990.

Six countries account for 95% of EU brown coal consumption: Germany, Poland, The Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

As the virus spread around the world, industrial demand for coal fell sharply.

The International Energy Agency’s Global Energy Review 2021 found that worldwide use of coal fell by 4% in 2020 – the biggest drop since World War II.

“The main driver of the decline was lower electricity demand owing to Covid‑19 restrictions and the resulting economic downturn,” the IEA says.

However, the rebounding global economy is predicted to reverse this fall, with 4.5% increase in demand over 2019 levels. “The rapid increase in coal-fired generation in Asia sees it account for three-quarters of the rebound in 2021,” the IEA says. “Gas prices are also expected to rise in 2021, leading to some switching back to coal, notably in the United States and the European Union.”

For decades, climate scientists have warned that burning fossil fuels is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns that unless there are “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be “beyond reach.”

But the IEA’s Net Zero by 2050 report, published in May 2021, highlights the enormous challenges we face in generating enough clean energy to power the planet.

The report says all unabated coal power plants must be phased out by 2040 if the world is to stay on the pathway to net zero by 2050. That capacity will need replacing with renewable energy.

The IEA report states that to implement the solar capacity required to help fill the energy gaps, we would need to install the equivalent of the world’s biggest solar farm, roughly every day, between now and 2030.

Dethroning ‘King Coal’ at a global level will require nothing short of an energy revolution.