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Earth Power United States

The End of Coal Could Be Closer Than It Looks (bloomberg.com) 397

Posted by BeauHD from the never-say-never dept.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report on Monday saying that the world's electrical utilities need to reduce coal consumption by at least 60 percent over the next two decades through 2030 to avoid the worst effects of climate change that could occur with more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. While that reduction seems out of reach, Bloomberg crunched some numbers and found that "it's possible to meet consumption-cut targets on the current path." From the report: The conventional wisdom is that this isn't possible, as rising demand from emerging economies, led by China and India, overwhelms the switch from fossil fuels in richer countries. That may underestimate the changing economics of energy generation, though. For one thing, it assumes that Asian countries will continue to build new coal-fired plants at a rapid rate, even though renewables are already the cheaper option in India and heading that way in China and Southeast Asia. For another, the falling cost and rising penetration of wind and solar is so recent that we're only just starting to see how they damage the business models of conventional generators. Thanks to the deflation of recent years, renewables already produce energy at a lower cost than thermal power plants. That causes the overall price of wholesale electricity to fall, reducing a conventional plant's revenue per megawatt-hour. When this drops below the generator's operating costs, the only away to avoid losing money is to switch off altogether. As a result, capacity factors -- the share of time when the plant is on and producing electricity -- decline as well, further undermining returns.

The shift from an always-on "baseload" demand profile to a peaks-and-troughs one like this carries its own problems. The act of ramping up and down consumes fuel and causes the physical plant to wear out faster. Absent expensive refurbishments, that could take a decade off the 40- to 50-year life of a coal plant -- and banks will get progressively less likely to fund long-term refurbs as wind and solar further damage the economics of fossil power. Researchers at the Australian National University this year modeled the effect of this sort of scenario on that country's generation mix. Assuming that the cost of renewables continues to evolve in line with current trends, they found the average retirement age of coal plants falls to 30 years from 50 years. As a result, coal-powered generation drops by about 70 percent between 2020 and 2030. "Let's assume the addition of net new generation stops in 2020; that plant life reduces to 30 years from 40 years; and that capacity factors gradually fall from the current 50 percent to 35 percent, still well above the levels of the U.K.'s coal generators in recent years," the report says in closing. "The effect of those operating changes alone reduces coal-fired electricity output in 2030 by about 40 percent relative to the higher scenario. [...] Factor in a price on carbon or other robust government intervention and the decline would be much faster."
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The End of Coal Could Be Closer Than It Looks More

The End of Coal Could Be Closer Than It Looks

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  • Not gonna happen (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cirby ( 2599 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @10:55PM (#57454010)

    China and India are still busily building new coal plants (despite what China sometimes claims), and you'd have to convince them - and their populations - that upward economic mobility is no longer an option.

    If India tried a huge cutback, they'd have riots.

    If China tried a huge cutback, they'd have a revolution.

    • Re:Not gonna happen (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @11:04PM (#57454038)

      China and India are still busily building new coal plants

      China and India are building new coal plants to meet rapidly growing demand for power. Most of that new demand is not for lighting, cooking, or transport, but for air conditioning.

      If you want to reduce coal consumption, the best, most cost effective, and politically acceptable solution, is better ACs.

      The worst ACs have three times the power consumption of the best for the same cooling capacity. There is huge room for improvement.

      • Re:Not gonna happen (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @02:22AM (#57454510)
        And better insulation would help a vast amount too

      • China and India are still busily building new coal plants

        China and India are building new coal plants to meet rapidly growing demand for power.

        According to the article, this is in the process of changing because solar is becoming the lower cost alternative.

    • Neither China nor India have to cutback coal. They simply have to stop adding new coal plants. In fact, all nations have to stop adding them. Then let the old plants retire. Ideanlly, they would be replaced with nukes, or AE, but even replacing with new fossil fuel plants that burn cleaner and emit less co2 would work.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      As I pointed out to you last time, China is no 4 years past peak coal and declining.

      http://ieefa.org/ieefa-update-... [ieefa.org]

      New plants are more efficient, cleaner ones to replace older plants that are EOL.

    • China and India are still busily building new coal plants (despite what China sometimes claims), and you'd have to convince them - and their populations - that upward economic mobility is no longer an option.

      Don't be daft. There's no requirement for coal for upward economic mobility. If anything CO2 trends in China show that upward economic mobility is achieved without increases in CO2 emissions, with new Coal plants mostly being used to decommission old ones, and the worlds largest renewable investment being injected into the energy supply of the country to sustain growth.

  • I'll be waiting for the (Score:4, Insightful)

    by satsuke ( 263225 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @10:59PM (#57454020)

    I'll be waiting for the inevitable talking points about how the US will never get off coal and natural gas because _strawman_ won't let it.

    Here's the reality, the rest of the world is moving off fossil fuels at a quick clip, the US will be left behind if we still allow industry to drive the ship (e.g. having oil company executives making energy policy that enriches themselves instead of the needs of the nation).

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 )
      Really? Germany gets 25% of their energy from coal. China is building new coal plants. What reality are you talking about?

      • Facts not unicorns for the GP (Score:5, Informative)

        by ishmaelflood ( 643277 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @11:11PM (#57454066)

        Here's a link to the current state of energy consumption worldwide. As you can see fossil fuels are growing, and recyclables are not keeping up with increased demand, never mind making inroads into the fossil fuel demand

        https://gailtheactuary.files.w... [wordpress.com]

        • Re:Facts not unicorns for the GP (Score:4, Informative)

          by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @11:09AM (#57455918)

          Yeah but using your graph you can see that the other shares are also growing in size, relative to the fossil fuel. I feel like this is one of those times where you really need to look at the first order derivative of this data to get a feel for hoe things are changing. Hell the 1980 Nuclear to 2010 Nuclear increase is massive compared to 1965 Nuclear to 1980 Nuclear increase. Wind which is non-existent in 2001 to where it is at in 2016 on that graph is a stunning delta to say the least. Going from 0 to about 25% the size of Hydro is the span of 15 years is a massive testament to the investment that's gone into that.

          Yeah, we use a lot of fossil fuel, your graph points that out. But the other colors on that chart are getting bigger faster relative to where they were relative to the rate of change fossil fuel is growing relative to it's previous size over a given timescale. I think you'd have an argument if the graph just went up and all the other sources, basically continued to show zero to little growth. But clearly from your graph that's not the case. The delta in growth of any of those other sources over a given timescale is easily larger than the delta of fossil fuels over same timescales.

          It took Fossil fuels 1965 to 2001 to move from 4 to 8 billion (double growth in 36 years). It looks like in 2016 it hadn't hit 12 (another 4 billion in growth). So that's 15 years for a 50% growth which it didn't hit. Perhaps it might hit 50% around 2018-2020. That's aiming for another double in growth in about the same delta in time, 36 years.

          If you look at Wind though, you can see that in 2010 it's just a few pixels wide and by 2016 (a six year delta) it has almost quadruple in size. If it keeps that rate of growth up, it'll be as big as nuclear by 2024-ish. As big as hydro by 2030-ish. Again, that's a big IF on if wind can sustain that growth.

          However, I did want to point out that your graph does show massive changes happening. Yes, we use a lot of fossil fuels, we're not going to turn this ship on a dime. But your same graph shows that diversity in energy mixture is happening at a not seen before pace. It might take a century to turn everything around. We're making changes really freaking fast in the energy sector and your graph clearly shows that. Look at the mixture in the 1960s to 1980s compare that to the mixture in the 2000s to 2016. However, that breakneck pace still is too slow to address climate change.

          I'm not saying your original argument is incorrect, but I'd argue that it's not the correct way of looking at the data.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 )

        Germany gets 25% of their energy from coal.

        Germany is even cutting down forests to build new coal mines.

        Why . . . ?

        Germany continues to remain heavily reliant on coal, partly to offset Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision in 2011 to phase out nuclear power by 2022.

        https://www.dw.com/en/no-chanc... [dw.com]

        • This is a result of a overly pro business and conservative local government colluding with a huge company with local head quarters in an area with a long history of mining and trying to enforce a bad idea against the will of the population just because.

          The local government will pay for it and after Stuttgart 21 they should have known better. But conservatives never learn.

    • the US will never get off coal

      The US is rapidly moving away from coal. No new coal plants are being built, and none are planned. Many are closing every year.

      Coal is dying. Even Trump supporters know that.

      ... and natural gas

      Shutting gas turbine plants is stilly if we are still burning coal. Coal emits twice the CO2 and many times more other gunk. Electricity is fungible, so you always want to close your dirtiest and least economical plants first, and that ain't gas.

      • Re:I'll be waiting for the (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @12:01AM (#57454222)

        In US, yes, but not courtesy of pie in the sky "wind and solar". It's dying because it can't compete with natgas sourced from fracking and modern CCGTs. It's cheaper, plants are simpler, and it emits about half CO2 per energy produced compared to coal. Add on top of that the fact that the other product of burn cycle is water, and you don't need any catalytic and particulate filtration either, nor do you need automation investments to keep NOx and SO2 production low to zero.

        It's just cheaper to build a CCGT. Bonus points for the fact that if someone decides to build a wind park next door, your CCGT can be fairly economically run in OCGT cycle to function as spinning reserve.

        • Of course catalytic converters are required for gas fired power plants. When something organic is burning it will release carbon monoxide as well as soot from incomplete combustion.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Literally, no. According to my information, which should be up to date, overwhelming majority of CCGTs in Europe burn gas low enough in sulphur content that they in fact do not need catalytic converters, because particulate exhaust they produce is non-existent.

            Exceptions are multi-fuel installations that can also burn light oil distillates and CCGTs that are certified to burn refinery gas rather than natgas.

            • Catalytic converters convert incompletely combusted carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide. Not sulphur (that's a job for scrubbers, not catalytic converters), not soot (that's a job for particulate filters).

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                Since when is small amount of carbon monoxide vented upward a problem in massive volume of CO2 and H2O? Overwhelming majority of CO prevention is done with automation handling burning process anyway, just like it is now done with SO2 and NOx. Modern computerization allows for burn control that is near perfect, and CO, NOx and SO2 do not form when temperature control is tight enough.

                That said, I'll repeat that many CCGTs are certified to burn refinery gas and/or light oil distillates, and such plants typical

                • Since always. This is why catalytic converters have been added to both cars and power plants in the first place. Converting carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide is their main job. Even modern computerisation will not help you there, thanks to the Boudouard equilibrium there always will be carbon monoxide in the exhaust.

      • Re:I'll be waiting for the (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @12:23AM (#57454296)

        Oh, and something I forgot. Trump's most likely plan is to elbow US into the Australia's market of coal exports to East Asia. It keeps growing, and since coal is increasingly uneconomical in US, it would make sense to simply export it to China, India, Pakistan and ACEAN countries who are in dire need of it. It would also help with trade deficit issues.

      • Coal is dying. Even Trump supporters know that.

        You're giving them way too much credit. Most of them don't [wvnews.com] know that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      >> having oil company executives making energy policy that enriches themselves instead of the needs of the nation
      Capitalism rocks. Just go on as planned.

    • Ppl like you are the problem. You did not even read the article. In it, they state that America dropped 1/3 of our coal production over the last 7 years. And these were the worst for emissions. America has not built a new coal in some 7 years. And by end of 2021, America's coal plants should be below 1/2 of our peak. But the fact you think other nations , es China is cutting back, is the real problem.
    • I'm starting to see a lot of Teslas on the road.
      You have to give the US credit for being the first country to introduce and buy a product that has a significant chance to change how we fuel transportation.
      I do agree that industry and consumers alone cannot be the solution. Government must play a role instead of subsidizing the fossil fuel industry.

    • " because _strawman_ won't let it."

      Reality check...you can't please enough people to make headway. There is ALWAYS some group large enough to wield power that opposes any large scale alternative energy. Jesus, they can't even agree on waste storage. Didn't congress end up demanding that Yucca mountain be proven secure for 1 million years? Thank the special interests for that clusterf***.

      Nuclear: no scary atoms in my backyard

      Large scale solar: You're killing the spotted rhinoceros beetle

      Large scale wind

  • This ignores the possibility of coal subsidies shoring up the aforementioned losses. Laws could mandate coal even if economically unfeasible, leading to higher regional prices. Also, energy prices could go up if there were a major war involving India, China or the US. Not terribly likely in the next 10 years but you never know.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      If you're talking US, the problem isn't "subsidies". It's the fracking and natgas capture. Natgas is basically free in US near the transit lines. That makes it really hard for other burner fuels to compete. Same is increasingly true for Mexico, which is getting its own natgas delivery network done to ship it from US.

      Same is true to lesser extent close to similar natgas sources. I.e. Great Britain with its North Sea sourced natgas, Russia and its immediate neighbourhood within range of the distribution netwo

  • Don't believe everything you read on /. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @11:22PM (#57454100)

    Well coal's future may be uncertain but wishful thinking on the internet will likely outlive us all.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]

    Globally, coal is even more alive. "Think the Big Banks Have Abandoned Coal? Think Again." Even a solar magazine admits: "China to add 259 GW of coal capacity, satellite imagery shows." For reference, 259 GW is more than twice the amount of power capacity that mighty Texas has FROM ALL SOURCES.

    Now Asia - which accounts for close to 80% of total global coal usage - is increasingly turning to the U.S. to supply coal. We are still the world's third largest coal producer. The U.S. supplies both types, met coal to produce steel and steam coal to produce electricity. "U.S. coal exports increased by 61% in 2017 as exports to Asia more than doubled."

    The U.S. has a 360-year supply of coal to bolster our expanding export market. The trade war with the U.S. however, could have China looking to expand domestic supply, and the country's coal production caps have been found to be "technically infeasible."

    The fact is that both China (65%) and India (75%) are hugely dependent upon coal-based electricity, which will be needed in even bigger quantities to lift their low Human Development Index closer to those in the West, where universal electricity access has more people living better and longer. Can you really blame them? "The Statistical Connection Between Electricity and Human Development."

    • they've literally got 50 times the population but they're only adding twice as much coal capacity?

      And like the article says, solar and wind are _already_ cheaper than coal. That's without factoring in the health costs from breathing the dirty air.

      Power plants are big projects that take years to build. So yeah, you're gonna see coal for a while while it works its way out of the system. Maybe another 10 years or so. That seems like a long time to the /. crowd because we're in our 40s and 50s and, well

  • includes government subsidies. It may cost more to keep a coal plant running, but not if the feds give them tax incentives to keep burning the coal so that people in W Virginia who work in the mines will keep voting for Republicans.

  • Geopolitics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tambo ( 310170 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @12:30AM (#57454326)
    Let's not forget the obvious geopolitical angle: The U.S. has positioned itself on a path contrary to the entire rest of the world by dropping renewables and doubling down on fossil fuels. By choosing renewables, China can position itself on the international stage as taking the high road - and then bash the U.S. incessantly, with support from the rest of the world.

    The U.S. will eventually change its mind (as soon as it can change its administration to one that's actually responsible), and then it will have to struggle to catch up. China can also exploit its enormous head start, both for profit and for strategic leverage - including inserting espionage equipment into renewable devices sold to the the U.S.

    It may well take the U.S. a decade or more to catch up, including still more deficit spending. The U.S. may well find itself unable to recover, and may even experience energy shortages if it cannot get the renewable tech it needs. The end result may be a significant shift of political power among first-world nations.

    • Re:Geopolitics (Score:4, Insightful)

      by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@@@earthlink...net> on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @02:59AM (#57454554)

      By choosing renewables, China can position itself on the international stage as taking the high road - and then bash the U.S. incessantly, with support from the rest of the world.

      The USA is bashed incessantly already, how does this "taking the high road" change anything?

      The U.S. will eventually change its mind (as soon as it can change its administration to one that's actually responsible), and then it will have to struggle to catch up.

      Catch up to what? Reducing their CO2 output? The USA has already been doing far better on this than many other nations in the world, and they aren't even trying.

      The U.S. may well find itself unable to recover, and may even experience energy shortages if it cannot get the renewable tech it needs.

      How in the hell would the USA experience energy shortages? The USA already exports coal. If the USA isn't a net exporter of oil by now it will be one soon, same for natural gas. Nuclear power output has been growing even though few nuclear reactors have been built in the last 40 years. Upgrades and improved techniques have allowed for greater and greater output from the existing fleet of nuclear power plants. There's been a rough restart of building new nuclear power reactors but it's fairly certain that this will be resolved shortly and more new power reactors will be coming online soon. The wind industry is doing well. The USA will not run out of energy any time soon, even if nations like China want to get in a trade war.

      The end result may be a significant shift of political power among first-world nations.

      It's quite possible that there could be a shift in political dominance. What is unlikely to cause such a shift is China getting some kind of monopoly on solar panels.

    • Let's not forget the obvious geopolitical angle: The U.S. has positioned itself on a path contrary to the entire rest of the world by dropping renewables and doubling down on fossil fuels.

      Government Policy != Human behavior in the US.

      Maybe our pursuit of "ideal democracy" has yielded some shockingly poor choices leading to a government hostile to good climate common sense. Yep, we have the BoatyMcBoatFace of the "Environmental Protection Agency" world.

      But that doesn't mean the the US citizens don't care. We are voting with their pocketbooks and making serious progress here addressing climate change - without being forced by an oppressive government.

  • Can not happen since too many ppl consider it ok for 3rd world and China, to add new coal plants. China is ADDing, not just replacing, more new coal to China alone, than the America has by 2030. And they are adding to china/3rd world more than the entire west has has. U less we stop adding new coal, we lose. BTW, replacing old coal with new coal plants that burn less coal or new Nat gas plants, work as well. Ideally, we would replace with AE along with nukes.

  • 4 takeaways (Score:3)

    by ElitistWhiner ( 79961 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @10:03AM (#57455600) Journal

    1) Contraction - globally environments are in a phase of reduction
    2) Impact - edge conditions are the first responders stripping models through innovation
    3) Stress - thrashes modes of use down to survival conditions
    4) Failure - Law of Diminishing Returns for those caught in the crux

    It not only spells doom for big UTILITIES but general everyday work that impacts jobs, change to part-time gig work who feel the thrash; which tolls will be taken in the future. Innovation doesn't lead people out of the crux

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