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Finland phases out coal, ahead of schedule:
“Imported fossil energy has been replaced with cleaner solutions that reduce climate emissions, while consumers benefit from lower energy prices”
“As Finland previously relied primarily on coal imported from Russia, the phase-out has also boosted Finland’s energy independence and, therefore, national security.”
@Akshay Thank you, Finland, for doing the hard yards. I'm sorry my country hasn't been pulling its weight.
@anne_twain @Akshay I know which part of your country i blame: Australia has one of the biggest Coal and Gas Lobby in the world.
@Akshay And in Canada we cancel the Carbon levy so we can retreat from the fight against climate change
@Akshay We did the same 40 years ago in Ontario, but coal was replaced by nuclear not renewables. My guess is that a similar phenomena is actually at play in Finland. Renewables have their place in the climate fight but IMO it is not greening the grid.
I don’t know the Finnish numbers by heart but currently the EU grid is 47% renewable, mostly solar, wind and hydro, 24% nuclear and the rest fossil.
So clearly renewables are greening our grid (and they’re expected to dominate the remaining emissions reductions for electricity too)
https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/01/EER_2025_22012025.pdf
@Akshay I don’t disagree that renewables have been greening the grid. My point was that, based on my analysis, greening the grid is a poor use of cheap renewables from a climate optimization. It is 2x better to dedicate all renewable electrons to green steel or eMethanol than simply dumping them onto the grid to offset fossil gas. The storage requirements for a green grid are unbridgeable.
A genuinely good news story!
Finland transitions off Russian coal to renewables in record time. See 
@Akshay it's only Helsinki. The rest of Finland has 2 more coal plants that give <1% of the country's emissions. Also, this plant had an extension for its closing date, so ahead of schedule is not really true.
Thanks for the local info!
But <1% is good enough for me!
And zero (except strategic reserve) next year is excellent. (I’m not sure when the original national target for coal phase out was? I thought they were talking about the national coal phase out date, not this particular plant.)