Day of reckoning Past failures must inform transition to greener future

It is mere coincidence that the closure of the blast furnace at the Port Talbot steel works and the shutdown of Britain's last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire happened on the same day.

- Larry Elliott

Yet, while the timing of the two events is pure chance, they are freighted with significance, representing the UK's once world-leading economic past, its struggling present, and the way to a possible industrial renaissance.

Steelmaking at Port Talbot came about not by accident but because of the proximity of abundant supplies of high-grade coal hewn from the pits of the south Wales valleys. When the first coal-fired power station was opened in London in 1882, UK coal production - some for domestic use and some for export - was nearing its peak.

But by the 1880s, Britain's position as the world's biggest economy was already starting to come under threat from the US and Germany. Having been the first country to industrialise, it was slow to make the transition to the newer industries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as steel and chemicals. The staple industries of the first Industrial Revolution - coal, cotton and shipbuilding would go into long-term decline.