From the northernmost reaches of the River Soar in Nottinghamshire, the towers of Britain’s last coal-fired power station emerge from the flat countryside like concrete monuments to another time.
For more than half a century Ratcliffe-on-Soar has burned millions of tonnes of coal to generate the electricity needed to power the British economy. But one by one Britain’s coal power stations have closed, leaving Ratcliffe the sole survivor. In less than six months it, too, will finally power down for good, extinguishing the last embers of the once-mighty coal industry.
