A controlled explosion on a remote part of the Kent coast will have gone unnoticed by most – but it marked a major victory for Britain’s climate movement. On 9 July, the enormous turbine hall at Kingsnorth power station was demolished, spelling the end of the 43-year-old coal plant.
Environmentalists and the energy industry clashed at Kingsnorth in 2008, when its owners, E.ON, tried to build two new coal power stations there: Greenpeace protesters abseiled down its cooling towers (they were arrested and later acquitted); a large-scale Climate Camp trained up activists while under attack from riot police.
