The End of Coal Could Be Closer Than It Looks (bloomberg.com) 397
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."
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."
Not gonna happen (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
Read the article [Re:Not gonna happen] (Score:3)
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.
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ACs are about as good as they can get right now, especially in developing countries.
That is partly true.
The most savings you had if old ACs would be replaced by new ones: in the developed world!!
A 3 times cost of energy in per unit to cool is acceptable because a more efficient system costs 15x per unit more.
That is nonsense. They cost exactly the same.
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:4, Interesting)
The most savings you had if old ACs would be replaced by new ones: in the developed world!!
Great! So, in a developing country where a 1st world AC unit will run say $780k-1.8m, and drive up the rental price by 50%, people will obviously flock to that building right? Especially when the building on the other side of town uses a far less efficient version, but has a lower rental price because the cost of electricity is lower and in the long term costs less per unit.
That is nonsense. They cost exactly the same.
No, they don't. The price of electricity for example is a good gauge for this. If the system is cheaper you're not paying as much for maintenance because it doesn't require the specialists. With a lower cost per kWh, rounded out with tax benefits you can come out a head.
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But the increasing demand can only be accounted for by new AC installations. Anything old would be existing and already part of the load prior to the increase in demand that's prompting new powerplant construction.
Unless you're implying that there are warehouses full of 10+ year old AC units they're clearing out for all those new installations...
=Smidge=
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and in worst cases nasty crap like legionaries starts breeding in the HVAC system. ... that should be the normal case.
Legionaries live in water. So first question is: how did they get there? I mean into your heating system.
Secondly, if they are only in the heating system: who cares? The problem would be if they are in the hot water for bathing and showering. That is easy overcome by heating up the water above 60C
Legionaries are problem in institutions that keep huge amounts of hot water ready but don't mak
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You don't know? Why even bother to comment. Evaporation coolers and condensers are a breeding ground for legionaires. We've even seen this in data centers that use a 2-phase cooling system. In buildings, this becomes a problem because companies lower the temprature for hot water so it doesn't become a liability. i.e. people don't burn themselves, but in turn they do stupid things like using hot tap water to make themselves hot drinks.
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Anonymous Cowards (Score:3)
AC are a problem on slashdot. Didn't know there's a problem with Anonymous Cowards all over Asia.
Re: Not gonna happen (Score:2)
We were smarter in the 1950's
IQ-wise, no question. However, we now 'stand on the shoulders of giants' - and look up "rocket stoves;" they're orders of magnitude more efficient than fireplaces (with or without the 'thermal mass action').
Re: Not gonna happen (Score:2)
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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.
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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.
Re:75% worlds population goes first (Score:5, Informative)
We're 40 years on from the pollution crisis media induced panic and all of those 'in the next 5 years' predictions haven't come true.....
In those 40 years we have phased out leaded petrol, leaded paint, chlorofluorocarbons, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to name just a few. We are still seeing the effects of these, despite them being banned for decades.
So the "crisis" has been reduced, but not eliminated. And it has been reduced because we did something about it, not because the media induced a panic. If anything, the media raised awareness so that we would act.
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The media induces panics all the time. Remember in 2011 they scaremongered about nuclear power? Germany got rid of its nuclear plants and is digging for coal. The media induced a panic about DDT and millions have died of malaria as a result. Fear mongering is standard practice for the media and they won't stop because they don't bear the costs of their malfeasance.
Umm, what panic? Is panic some dog whistle for "I do not like this news, so we must suppress it"?
First, your desire apparently needed classifying Fukushima images and reporting as top secret. Deal with it, not many people are going to see reactor buildings blowing up and think - I want one of those in my town. And DDT is not some sort of majick gift from God. It is a pesticide, and as such, suffers from the same problems of resistance as other pesticides. And while you are lamenting the "millions" of da
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The media induced a panic about DDT
In all fairness though. DDT is a horrible chemical and shouldn't be used in places where people or animals are expected to exists in. I get your point though, people's knee jerks can bring about the end of something before a useful alternative is found. But to be devil's advocate, companies don't seem to ever want to find/use a useful alternative by themselves. It always seems like to get change to happen, it's always got to be this nanny nagging "oh no the world will end" kind of style. That's not tru
Re:75% worlds population goes first (Score:4, Insightful)
DDT was only banned for agricultural use. It is still available for use in mosquito control in countries that need it.
The problem is that overuse of DDT allowed mosquitoes to develop a strong resistance to it. Here's a nice study on that topic [cdc.gov], but since you won't bother reading it I will quote "We conducted standard insecticide susceptibility testing across western Kenya and found that the Anopheles gambiae mosquito has acquired high resistance to pyrethroids and DDT"
Put simply, DDT doesn't work well for controlling malaria carrying mosquitoes anymore, and that was not caused by media induced panics about DDT. If anything, the media exposure that lead to banning DDT for all other uses probably prolonged it's usefulness for controlling mosquitoes.
Re: 75% worlds population goes first (Score:2)
Why?
Coal is expensive, requiring hundreds of trillions in subsidies each year to be economic.
You could build a lot of solar for just one year's subsidies, at far better output per unit cost.
Why should we ask competitors to get an edge? Why not do so ourselves first and use that to force them to follow?
Re: 75% worlds population goes first (Score:3)
Coal is expensive, requiring hundreds of trillions in subsidies each year to be economic.
This is pretty silly, jd. Where did you get such a crazy number?
Look up the global GDP and you will realize why it makes no sense.
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This is pretty silly, jd. Where did you get such a crazy number?
Perhaps it's an estimated cost to clean up the pollution from coal power. However, that cost is actually infinite, since coal plants are distributing radioactive isotopes and soot across the planet and we physically can't clean that up. Therefore, coal is effectively receiving $INFINITY in subsidies.
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:4, Funny)
>> What if the natural gas is not cheap?
Then even cheaper renewables will do the trick.
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:5, Interesting)
I know the "but Germany" argument comes up here and there, but it is simply wrong.
To the contrary: even though Germany had a moratorium on nuclear energy after Fukushima-Daiishi in 2011, the share of coal (including lignin) generated electricity had just a small uptick until 2013 and is even faster declining [wikipedia.org] since (from 62% in 1990 to 52% today).
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:5, Interesting)
So, they're only running 52% coal, as compared to the USA's 30%? Yep, much greener in Germany....
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:4, Interesting)
According to this source (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts), the energy mix is about 36% coal and 33% renewables. Still looks greener in Germany.
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Not really a fair comparison when Germany started in a worse position than the US.
So (Score:3)
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First coal power station 1882
First wind farm 1980
First 1mw solar farm 1982
Coal has had a 100 year head start, there's not much efficiency gains to be had. Wind and solar OTOH are both improving rapidly, in terms of efficiency and in terms of rapid cost declines. New factories producing cheaper solar panels and wind turbines are mushrooming, those factories being built now will produce premium priced product for a few years - and then the price will decline - it'll decline and they'll either be producing ch
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Natural gas is always cheaper than coal - assuming a good supply.
It's also the opposite end of the fossil fuel energy vs carbon scale from coal.
Fossil fuels are mostly either hydrocarbons or carbon with no hydrogen. Hydrogen provides most of the energy when burned, the carbon some, but mostly it's a backbone to stick the hydrogens together into a liquid or gas.
Hydrocarbons have two hydrogens per carbon, plus two extra (unless some carbon bonds are used up making rings or double-bonds). So the smaller the
You have no idea what you're talking about (Score:2)
Retrofit a coal plant into a nuke plant ? Yeah right.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Re: You have no idea what you're talking about (Score:2)
They are probably talking about the site and it's logistics & grid connectivity. But I don't see it happening for most of their coal plants. They will probably reuse one out of ten of these for this.
China has a lot of these types of plans where they aim very high, shoot in the middle, and come out pretty much where every other nation does.
I'll be waiting for the (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
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Facts not unicorns for the GP (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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.
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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]
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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.
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Baseload is a concept that exists only because of coal power plants (and later nukes) that cannot follow load (well, French nuclear power plants sort of can, but that makes them quite inefficient and somewhat unreliable, with an availability of 70% or so). Without these the whole base load concept will cease to exist.
Re: No this is the result of no nuclear dumb polic (Score:2)
Re:No this is the result of no nuclear dumb policy (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no.
Baseload exists because electricity demand is fairly predictable. You could draw a line under which the electricity demand never falls below which you could always match with baseload, and you could draw "sine waves" of demand which are fairly predictable and solutions can be found to
It is a lot easier to use baseload overcapacity to do things like pumped hydro to smooth daily demand fluctuations than it is to try and match an unpredictable supply to fluctuating and not completely predictable demand.
All other things equal, a generation source capable of delivering a consistent supply is better than one which is not able to guarantee consistent supply.
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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)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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
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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:2)
Re:I'll be waiting for the (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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>> having oil company executives making energy policy that enriches themselves instead of the needs of the nation
Capitalism rocks. Just go on as planned.
Re: I'll be waiting for the (Score:2)
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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.
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" 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
Subsidies and War (Score:2)
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.
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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
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Fossil fuel subsidies by the US run to $200 trillion a year.
How are we managing a $200 trillion subsidy when the entire US GDP is only about $20 trillion? For that matter, $200 trillion exceeds the entire world GDP. http://statisticstimes.com/eco... [statisticstimes.com]
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Don't believe everything you read on /. (Score:5, Informative)
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."
China has 1.4 billion, Texas 28 million. (Score:2)
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
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Solar and wind need backup ... gas is slightly cheaper as backup, but coal is easier to build a strategic stockpile from.
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Re: Don't believe everything you read on /. (Score:2)
Coal is useless. It's not hard to throw away the useless, provides you have better solutions in place. It's that last bit that's the problem.
(Salter Duck failed because of falsified data, not poor design.)
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Coal is useless. In other news, pigs fly, sun rises from the West, and you understand this topic.
The cost of operating a coal fired power plant (Score:2)
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)
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 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.
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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.
Not going to happen. (Score:2)
Re: Not going to happen. (Score:2)
Re: Not going to happen. (Score:2)
4 takeaways (Score:3)
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
Re:Yeah, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Even countries like Germany are having a hard time moving away from coal
Solar doesn't work well in Germany because it is about as cloudy as the Bering Sea. They should import solar from sunny places like Spain.
CO2 is a global problem. Solutions don't have to be localized.
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Solar works great in Germany. In fact Germany is fifth in installed solar capacity.
But it doesn't, it's highly inefficient. The reason they produce as much as they do, is because rooftops everywhere are pretty much covered with PV cells. The cost to recoup the initial costs are over a period of 20-30 years(the pv panel life is around 25 years). This is pretty much the same as in Canada for instance, and one of the reasons why "green energy" like windmills and solar make next to no sense since they have to be heavily subsidized by the government to break even.
Re:Yeah, no (Score:5, Informative)
is because rooftops everywhere are pretty much covered with PV cells.
It is not even 1% of rooftops that are covered with solar cells, probably not even a half a percent.
The cost to recoup the initial costs are over a period of 20-30 years(the pv panel life is around 25 years).
No idea about the already existing plants.
However, if I invest now 10,000 into a roof top solar plant with battery storage and join a virtual power plant for reserve power/balancing power, I will earn over a course of 20 years 10,000. Earn! Not safe in costs, but earn!
Your idea about costs of solar panels are completely outdated.
(the pv panel life is around 25 years) ... but that stops around 80% original peak capacity.
The warranty is 30 years. They basically live for ever. No idea where this retarded "panel life is _" comes from. If it does not get destroyed by hail (and for that you need a big bunch of hail) ripped from the roof by an Orkan (that are our Hurricanes) burned or has rotting connections because of a bad day during manufactoring: they hold for ever. Sure they degrade
This is reposted and repeated on /. so often since 10 or more years: it should be common knowledge by now.
Re:Yeah, no (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12o... [nrel.gov]
In a nutshell, absent extreme temps in either direction, today's panels degrade very, very little over 20 years.
At or near the equator, UV will kill them at about 1-2% a year.
In very cold wet climates, snowload and wind degrade them about the same.
That doesn't make them a panacea of course. Non-distributability is the main problem. A tough not to crack.
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Transmission shouldn't be an issue at all. It's the placement of HVDC conversion stations and the building of transmission towers that's the problem in Europe's case. The amount of regulation, red tape, environmental impact studies, court challenges, and so on are the only things slowing these things down.
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Riiiiiight. Are you angelosphere's other account, and will tell me that Germany controls wind next?
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Yes. I and I comprehend enough to note that I read one of the dumbest claims I've had to read so far. Considering that our local wind wizard, angelosphere, recently decided to claim that nuclear is suitable for peaking, that's quite a stretch too. Because he went full retard as usual.
And you managed to outdo him, with your claim that the "only" HVDC deployment issues are about regulation, rather than costs. Those things are extremely expensive to deploy, and that has nothing to do with regulations, and ever
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Oops, here's the link: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de... [deutschlandfunk.de]
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Wholesale prices are dropping though because of the frequent oversupply ... so consumers get fucked, industry becomes more competitive.
From a mercantilist point of view it kinda works, though the EU doesn't really need a mercantilist Germany at this point in time.
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Nuclear cannot do peaking. Rest can. Hydrodynamic storage has been tried in Germany, and failed for the purpose you state, which is why Germany dismantled most of its hydro "energy storage" plants even as it was building up wind.
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Nuclear cannot do peaking ...
That is not even a formally correct english sentence.
Yes, they can. Actually they do all the time. Nuclear power plants in germany run at peak performance, or close to it, at about 95% peak
You see: when you realise what base load means: that a base load power plant is running at its peak. Then stupid catch phrases like "can't do peak", make no sense at all.
You probably meant: load following .... that in the end depends on the design of the reactor. The existing german ones are
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You can simply use the renewable to save fossil fuel and have overcapacity.
You get very expensive electricity that way of course.
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We are nowhere near the lower bound of resource use for solar.
Solar will get cheap enough that you simply roll it out in the desert without any frames, staking it to the ground ... maybe put pillow inflated with polymer foam under it if it can be made very very cheaply to angle it, but if not, ehh. It won't be consuming steel or glass at all at that point. Just a tiny bit of silicon and plastics (3M Ultra Barrier film last 25+ years).
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We are nowhere near the lower bound of resource use for solar.
Are you willing to bet the survival of the human race on that? I'm not.
As it is right now, today, nuclear power uses far less raw material for the same energy than solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal. As it is right now, today, nuclear power produces less CO2 per energy produced than any other energy source we know of. As it is right now, today, nuclear power is the safest energy source we have. If there is a great demand that we lower CO2, with least impact on lives and the environment, and deploy this a
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And I've heard that we'll have a power plant running on unicorn farts in 10 years. Seems like a more realistic solution to me.
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You know BlindSeer, every time I read your posts I think "that BS is amazing".
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When I hiked across the northern UK in 2014, the insanity of substituting small renewables for baseload sources of power was never more apparent.
Every small village we passed through in Cumbria and Yorkshire was fighting its own NIMBY battle over its installation of two or three wind turbines. Many of the villages being in designated national parkland made the NIMBY problem worse still. At Drax in Yorkshire, the world's largest coal generating plant had just been converted, with great fanfare, to burn wood.
Re: No mention of resource needs for wind and sola (Score:2)
The same sort of unimaginative, bean-counting fuckheads at TEPCO were responsible for Fukushima Daiichi.
Re: No mention of resource needs for wind and sol (Score:2)
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