[bramhaag]

https://beyondfossilfuels.org/europes-coal-exit/ keeps track of coal phase-out commitments. 24 European countries still use coal generators, and 6 have not even planned to phase them out (Serbia, Moldova, Turkey, Poland, Kosovo, Bosnia).

Never used coal power:

  Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway

Phased out:

  2016: Belgium
  2020: Sweden, Austria
  2021: Portugal
  2024: United Kingdom
  2025: Ireland

Phase-out planned:

  2026: Slovakia, Greece
  2027: France
  2028: Italy, Denmark
  2029: The Netherlands, Hungary, Finland
  2030: Spain, North Macedonia
  2032: Romania
  2033: Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia
  2035: Ukraine
  2038: Germany
  2040: Bulgaria
  2041: Montenegro

[arbuge]

> Never used coal power: Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway

Definitely wrong - Malta has used coal power for example. See for example:

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/power-and-energy/mal...

"In 1979, a second oil crisis, this time due to the Iranian Revolution, again brought into question Malta’s energy policy and made the government seek alternatives. Between 1982 and 1987, four stream turbines were installed at the Marsa Power Station. This strategy could have worked if the environmental and human health impacts of the coal used at the power station had not caused the local population to protest. In 1987, construction of a new power plant, at Delimara, started; the plant was commissioned in 1994. In the meantime, the Marsa Power Station continued to be improved, with new turbines added to eliminate the use of coal. On January 12, 1995, Malta became independent of coal but consequently became fully dependent on oil."

[NicuCalcea]

Moldova's coal plant is in Transnistria, a territory occupied by Russia. There are no phasing out plans because we have no control over it.

[mmooss]

You could disconnect from it. That's much easier said than done and probably very complicated by the occupation, but I would guess that disconnecting would reduce coal consumption and greenhouse gas emissions proportionally to power usage.

[NicuCalcea]

Moldova has not purchased any energy from it since 2024.

I should also note it is primarily a gas plant, fuelled by extremely cheap (nearly free) gas subsidised by Russia. It only falls back to coal when supply is disrupted, which happened when Ukraine stopped transiting Russian gas on its territory.

[Zhenya]

Moldavians have bigger problems that greenhouse emissions.

[mmooss]

Everyone claims to have bigger problems, but greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest problem.

Arguably, they are a particularly big problem to Moldovans because Russia's military is funded by greenhouse gas emissions.

[estimator7292]

Greenhouse gas emissions are a larger existential threat than global war. A global nuclear war might be more catastrophic than unchecked climate change, but probably not by much.

[bloak]

Disconnect from it? If it's connected to some kind of grid then you'd have to disconnect from the whole grid, surely? And if being connected to a grid that contains a coal-fired power station counts as using coal then how many countries are really coal-free?

[koakuma-chan]

How is it "Moldova's" then

[riffraff]

Transnistria Is a breakaway country which is only recognized by Russia&friends.

It is technically still considered Moldova by everyone else so it's not differentiated in documents from the EU and the likes.

[NicuCalcea]

It is not actually recognised by Russia either. It is in their best interest to maintain control over it, but officially recognise it as part of Moldova, so they can blackmail the entire country.

[bilekas]

Territory occupied does not translate to territory owned.

[renhanxue]

For Sweden, the coal plants were exclusively for cogeneration (district heating with electricity as a byproduct) and only used as peaker plants in winter. Some of them still exist but have been converted to burn biofuels instead, mostly woodchips and other byproducts from the forestry industry.

For most practical purposes, Swedish electricity generation has been basically fossile free since the 1980's.

[ggm]

I may be wrong, but I believe the british experience with biofuels is that although you want to believe its surplus byproduct, the cheapest source is often grown to be fuel for a biofuel generator. It's like soy/corn for ethanol, it isn't sufficiently profitable to do this solely with waste product, you get better margins growing to fulfill the contract.

[renhanxue]

That may be true in many places, but the Swedish forestry industry is very big, and the district heating plants really do burn mostly forestry byproducts. Of all the biofuel used in Sweden (not just for energy generation), 75% comes from forestry products, and the vast majority of it is either unrefined wood products or byproducts from Kraft process paper manufacturing (like tall oil and turpentine etc).

Specifically in district heating, 87% of the forestry-sourced fuel is unrefined wood products. Almost half of it is just bark, branches and treetops. Of all the biomass in an average mature tree logged in Sweden, 43% ends up as pulpwood, 43% as saw timber, 8% gets burned for fuel and the remaining 6% is treetops and branches which also tend to end up burned for fuel.

There is definitely a lot of debate in Sweden about sustainable forestry practices, though. The industry really wants to clearcut everything for convenience, but it's really bad for biodiversity and the general public hates it.

Source: the report Hållbarare biobränsle i fjärrvärmesektorn, Energiforsk 2023; specifically the charts on pages 14 and 15. Link: https://energiforsk.se/media/33316/2023-979-ha-llbarare-biob...

Addendum: I believe there's also been some studies and experiments involving importing olive pits from the Mediterranean olive oil industry for burning in district heating plants, but I don't think it's been done at scale.

[endominus]

Even if that were the case, wouldn't it still be an essentially net-zero pollution system (disregarding small contributions from transport etc.)?

[tpm]

Depends on the input into growing the biomass. If you are using industrial fertilizers, it's very far from net-zero. Besides that, from my memory there are studies analyzing this and I think they found it's never net-zero.

[youngtaff]

In the British case… it’s being chipped and shipped from Canada and there’s doubts it’s waste wood

It makes more sense to leave trees in the ground than burning them to generate energy

[knorker]

> For most practical purposes, Swedish electricity generation has been basically fossile free since the 1980's.

I think "practical purposes" should include the fact that thanks to also shutting down a bunch of nuclear, Sweden regularly imports German/Polish coal power.

Sweden claiming fossile free is only technically true. Practically there's a mountain of greenwashing.

So no, I would not say what you just said. I find that greenwashing dishonest.

By being anti nuclear, the green parties around the world have caused more radiation[1] and climate changing co2 than any other movement in history.

[1] An oft cited statistic is that coal causes more deaths every single year from radiation (excluding accidents) than nuclear has has caused in its entire history INCLUDING accidents.

[renhanxue]

I mean, you can call it a "mountain" of greenwashing but to me it looks more like a mole hill. Total Swedish electricity production is typically 160 to 165 TWh per year and total consumption is usually between 135 and 145 TWh.

In 2025, the net export was about 33 TWh. Gross import from Germany, Poland and Lithuania, including transit to other countries, was 1 TWh. So, imported power from countries with coal power plants was less than 1% of total consumption, and the amount of fossil free power exported was more than 30 times greater than the amount of (potentially) fossil power imported. 1-2% fossil energy in the mix is to me not really significant, and especially not considering how much fossil free power is exported.

Sources:

Statistics Sweden table of power import and export: https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/statistik-efter-amne/ener...

Basic information about Swedish power generation: https://www.energiforetagen.se/energifakta/elsystemet/produk...

[knorker]

I think it's huge greenwashing to claim to not have coal power, but just import it when needed. What practical difference is that to having coal power domestically? That's just saying you recycle all plastic, only to send it to the third world to dump in rivers.

So I think it's untrue to say that Sweden doesn't rely on coal power. Without coal power it'd have regular blackouts. I rely on being able to take a breath every couple of seconds. If I only get an annual average of a breath every few seconds, I'll die.

One could show great generation and net export statistics with a sufficiently large batteryless solar installation, and still import coal power every night and cloudy day.

What is true, but can easily imply an incorrect conclusion, is that Sweden's very good in being self sufficient in clean power generation statistically. Yes, very much true. But it's largely due to geography, and not merely something to replicate. Sweden has way more viable places where hydro could be installed, than most countries (though where economical and otherwise acceptable, it already has). And it's sparsely populated; Sweden is bigger than the UK, but with one seventh the population. So if the implication is that "if we can do it, so can you" then that's false.

Luckily the political wind (including population opinion) has started to turn in favor of nuclear power, again. Maybe everything can be solar in 100 years, but we can't have 100 more years of coal.

[fulafel]

> So I think it's untrue to say that Sweden doesn't rely on coal power. Without coal power it'd have regular blackouts.

The european grid is interconnected so it's basically all fungible. But it's not the case that there would be blackouts, since the price mechanism is used to match production, demand and return on production investments. So policy decisions to ramp down fossil generation result in investment decisions to new non fossil generation capacity.

[knorker]

> The european grid is interconnected so it's basically all fungible.

This is the point I'm making. It's not a counter point, it's exactly the point I'm making. Sweden "has" a bunch of coal plants, just located in Germany and Poland. This allows Sweden to skip planning for exactly what renewable is bad at.

Otherwise this is like saying "antibiotics are completely unnecessary because 99.99% of the time you don't need them, and when I do need them I just get them from a pharmacy". Right… so you do need and rely on them.

But Sweden also has a geographic electricity transportation problem. Electricity generation exists where (most) consumers are not. And this is also due to the MUCH more limited flexibility of renewables, especially hydro. Could easily be cheaper to get coal power in the south instead of hydro "shipped" from way up north. Hell, sometimes electricity in the north has a negative price.

Sweden is a good local example of why we also can't just power all of Europe from some solar panels in Sahara. Except instead it's hydro way up north.

[sampo]

Estonia has lots of oil shale (not same thing as shale oil). They never needed to import coal, because they have their own fossil fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Estonia#Oil-shale

[jnsaff2]

This is true. A nuance often missed. Different rock (that is considerably worse in several ways, needs heavy fuel oil to be added to actually burn and has I think even higher co2 output per unit of energy) but kinda the same.

[brazzy]

> Never used coal power:

> Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway

I very much doubt this is true for any of those countries. In fact, I know it is untrue for Switzerland, although they did stop using it long ago (mid 20th century).

Edit: Norway actually ran a coal power plant until 2023, on Spitsbergen

[bramhaag]

I agree that the wording is a little misleading. "No coal ever in the electricity mix" is what's stated on the site.

It seems they consider only coal use in the 21st century in mainland Europe + UK (i.e. not Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, etc.).

[runarberg]

Iceland (never used coal to my knowledge) is missing from the list.

[bell-cot]

Iceland's situation - tiny population, geothermal paradise - may be difficult for 99% of the world's countries to replicate.

[munk-a]

The US is in an excellent position to massively harness wind and solar and yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage. I am comfortable celebrating Iceland's decision to not be maliciously dependent on fossil fuels.

[nomel]

> yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage

Reference? This seems to be false. Coal is still on decline, while solar is what's ramping up [1][2]

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67005

[2] https://ieefa.org/resources/energy-information-administratio...

[munk-a]

Trump had a few executive orders that derailed phase out plans and the DoE released a coal plant refurbishing subsidy[1].

1. https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-...

[nomel]

So, in both cases it's helping sustain. "Ramping up" means increasing.

Is there something I'm missing here?

[tialaramex]

I mean, the EIA says "U.S. generation fueled by coal increased by 13% in 2025 to 731 BkWh"

The article you linked is mostly about a model of 2026 and 2027 and sure, in the model coal goes away but that's not a fact about coal it's just a model.

[nomel]

Yes with the next sentence explaining why, and how future years are planned to decrease.

"Ramping up" means planned to increase.

Feel free to provide a reference that supports that it's "ramping up". I, and parent, couldn't find one. This is a super boring factual thing that I was curious about, where opinion has no place or purpose.

[bell-cot]

> ... celebrating Iceland's decision to not ...

Okay, but you're celebrating make-believe virtues. Iceland is also not destroying its tropical coral reefs. That sounds nice...but it has none. Nor any sort of tradition or incentive to try doing that.

The US coal thing is all about widespread memories (and myths) of sustained good economic times, in large areas of the country which now feel destitute. Millions of voters feeling that they have no future. If not that the elites want them to hurry up and die.

To paraphrase Munger - if you want different outcomes there, then you need to change the incentives.

[huhkerrf]

> 2038: Germany

Well, sure is good the environmentalists shut down the German nuclear plants!

[SvenL]

Yes it’s good, but it’s bad that conservative parties still blocking modernization of the power grid/renewables.

It would be good if we could modernize our grid to support easier exchange of power from north to south and vise versa.

[iknowstuff]

Was it the environmentalists or the corrupt German government wanting to send more money to Russia for their natural gas via nordstream2

[p_l]

The anti-nuclear position in Germany is very old, and core to the existence of Greenpeace and green parties on DACH region (down to firing RPGs at reactors).

Does Russia benefit and probably fund it? Sure.

But DACH environmentalism grew from antinuclear protests, not the other way around, and thus will boycott nuclear even when it goes against their modern stated goals.

[kharak]

Sometimes interests intersect.

[nixass]

> Well, sure is good the environmentalists shut down the German nuclear plants!

Shutting down the nukes is inversely proportional to homeopathy popularity in Germany. That says it all

[jwe]

That sounds like a neat statistic. Do you have a source containing the data or better yet a rendered map showing this?

[realaaa]

like - never ever used coal power?? very hard to believe this...

> Never used coal power: Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway

[jesterson]

It's not true of course. Correct would be to say it perhaps never produced power by coal.

But It bought a lot and most of it had come from coal generation.

[deanc]

This is now how we should be looking at the problem. It doesn't matter if you burn coal yourself or not. What matters is the source of your energy. Every single one of those countries imports energy from other markets which consume fossil fuels for production.

[cjblomqvist]

I know at least Sweden has been a net exporter for a long time. It's a little bit complicated (that's what happens in a market economy). Anyhow, we/EU should continue to strive to end coal as an energy source for all countries, be since we can do much better.

[simonask]

The unique geography of the Scandinavian peninsula combined with very low population density makes Sweden a bit less interesting in terms of achieving zero emissions in other geographies, and I doubt Swedes would be cool with expanding hydro and nuclear to the scale required by Germany.

But yeah, I mean, good job and all. The answer for the rest of the continent is going to be wind and solar in the medium term, and probably more nuclear in the long term.

[cjblomqvist]

Totally. Tech neutral state incentives is the way to go for sure, everybody has different environment and context to consider (same within Sweden). Southern Europe has very different opportunities (much better situation for solar for example).

Anyway, my comment was in response to the extreme comment (parent) about how all rich countries became rich using fossil fuels - implying that that's the more or less only way to transition from poor to rich. I think it's important to note that that's not necessarily the case. You don't need to destroy the environment to go from poor to rich, even though a lot of countries historically have done it that way (also noteworthy that they did it without knowing about the consequences for the environment).