Coal Use To Reach New Peak - And Remain at Near-Record Levels For Years (theguardian.com) 47
The world's coal use is expected to reach a fresh high of 8.7bn tonnes this year, and remain at near-record levels for years as a result of a global gas crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. From a report: There has been record production and trade of coal and power generation from coal since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine inflated global gas market prices, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA said the coal rebound, after a slump during the global Covid pandemic, means consumption of the fossil fuel is now on track to rise to a new peak of 8.77bn tonnes by the end of the year -- and could remain at near-record levels until 2027.
The Paris-based agency blamed power plants for the growing use of coal over the last year, particularly in China which consumes 30% more of the polluting fuel than the rest of the world put together. In developed economies such as the US and the European Union coal power generation has already passed its peak, the IEA said, and is forecast to fall by 5% and 12% respectively this year.
The IEA said the coal rebound, after a slump during the global Covid pandemic, means consumption of the fossil fuel is now on track to rise to a new peak of 8.77bn tonnes by the end of the year -- and could remain at near-record levels until 2027.
The Paris-based agency blamed power plants for the growing use of coal over the last year, particularly in China which consumes 30% more of the polluting fuel than the rest of the world put together. In developed economies such as the US and the European Union coal power generation has already passed its peak, the IEA said, and is forecast to fall by 5% and 12% respectively this year.
Still convinced China issues empty coal permits? (Score:3)
For a few years now, we've been assured by many posters that the numerous coal plant permits recently issued in China wouldn't necessarily result in a new coal plant. And yet here we are.
Re: (Score:2)
Xi is now the undisputed dictator and basically emperor of China so they don't really need t
Re:Still convinced China issues empty coal permits (Score:5, Interesting)
China's economy is collapsing (as are their population numbers), but they still are spending a lot on power generation. And coal is still relatively cheap to install and burn. So as their prospects dim, that's when we should expect Chinese interests to call in those permits and build plants. It's likely already happening. Don't expect the CCP to brag about it, though. They want to talk about their solar installations.
Re: (Score:2)
Solar supplementing, not displacing, coal in China (Score:2)
Its time, actually long past time, to stop granting waivers in various climate accords and protocols to China.
Re: (Score:2)
Even Musk admitted, homelessness is a mental-illness issue: Meaning not a supply and affordability problem. What 'Lone' Musk meant was, mental-illness isn't real and those homeless people are choosing not to be, obedient employees.
Re: (Score:3)
>> permits recently issued in China wouldn't necessarily result in a new coal plant
The cited article states that coal demand in China "is expected to grow by 1% in 2024". That doesn't mean all the coal plants that got permits will be built.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but old plants may need to be taken offline or rebuilt, etc. A 1% increase is not the direction the CCP would like you to think they're taking.
Nuclear fanboys (Score:1)
Well let's take a look at the current state of nuclear power. I keep hearing how it's the liberals, environmentalists, and anti nuke tree huggers that sabotage and balloon the costs.
How about a country like the United Arab Emirates? Surely they won't have any of those people causing problems. Let me introduce you to the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant. It only took 12 years and a mere $32 billion to complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Seems like they had quite a struggle getting it operational even with
Re:Nuclear fanboys (Score:5, Informative)
Compare that to something like the Site C hydro megadam [wikipedia.org] in BC, Canada. Started in 2007, will be until 2025 before fully operational, and cost around $16B. Going full bore, it will only add about 8% additional capacity to a single province in the country.
The nuclear plant sounds like a hell of a good deal, and far lower environmental impact too.
Re: (Score:2)
$32B does not seem like a steep price for 5.6 GW of reliable, always available capacity
?? That sounds like an extremely risky economic bet compared to $16B for the same amount of intermittent wind, or $5B for the same amount of intermittent solar. When you take out loans to build the nuclear power plant, you're gambling that neither grid-scale-battery nor geothermal technology will improve enough in the 30 year loan payback period that would make your up-front investment in nuclear pointless. The long payback period and the risk means there's no hope of private investment, and hence tax-payer
Around 6 to 8 years to build a nuclear reactor (Score:3)
https://www.sustainabilitybynu... [sustainabi...umbers.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Name one.
Chinese nuclear plants (Score:4, Informative)
https://thebreakthrough.org/is... [thebreakthrough.org]
China is averaging under 7 years.
Re: Around 6 to 8 years to build a nuclear reactor (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Name one? Did you follow the fine link? The linked article made the claim of a nuclear power plant being built in three years in the summary, if that is something you find incredible then perhaps reading beyond the summary would provide answers to your questions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>> pausing US export of LGN
Obvious lie. There was "a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries" (non-Free Trade Agreement countries).
Approved exports continued and "The U.S. is already the number one exporter of LNG worldwide".
Re: (Score:2)
It's not really a lie, freezing exports at 2024 levels and preventing the construction of new export terminals is definitely going to cut down on US exports vs where they could have been.
Fox Logic (Score:2)
So Joe is now being bashed for being "America first"?
Biden has restrained oil and gas (Score:2)
>> pausing US export of LGN
Obvious lie. There was "a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries" (non-Free Trade Agreement countries). Approved exports continued and "The U.S. is already the number one exporter of LNG worldwide".
Yes, drilling approved in the prior Trump administration produced oil and gas under the Biden administration.
Yes, LNG exports approved in the prior Trump administration increased exports.
That fact remains that Biden has done what he could to restrain both oil and natural gas. Despite such a policy position contributing to higher prices and funding Putin's war. Redesignating land with huge reserves as undrillable. Slow walking pipeline permits, particularly the small pipelines that connect drills with thei
Re: (Score:1)
Obvious lie.
It's a link to the Whitehouse.gov page. Are you saying that the official Whitehouse release is a lie?
Re: (Score:2)
I quoted directly from that page. Why did you lie?
Re: (Score:2)
Could just as well be about trade, as it says the existing regulations "no longer adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers". Don't want to grow export capacity faster than supply and let foreigners increase the energy cost for industry too much.
With mercantilism a nation prefers to export high value goods rather than relatively low value inputs and mercantilism works.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't want to grow export capacity faster than supply and let foreigners increase the energy cost for industry too much.
A hypothetical he works to create by constraining the natural gas supply. He doesn't want to grow capacity at all, he wants to eliminate it.
Re: (Score:2)
That God that Biden is looking to help by pausing US export of LGN [whitehouse.gov] right now.
A puppet of Putin obviously.
Start testing Plan B (Score:2)
Countries do want to hedge their energy sources by having multiple sources, so coal is tempting as a backup to oil and renewables.
Seems we gotta figure out geoengineering; humans bicker too much to prevent.
Re: (Score:2)
Almost all the coal China burns to provide electricity is mined in-country. It can't be limited by sanctions by hostile countries preventing it being imported. Energy security is something most countries don't think about until bad things happen.
Re: (Score:1)
Use of coal for energy isn't likely to go anywhere soon but coal may be replaced by nuclear fission for electricity fairly quickly. A lot of energy use is industrial heating and getting that from electricity isn't nearly as convenient as getting it from coal. Also for some industrial processes the coal is part of the chemistry than just providing heat, such as in steel production.
I've heard of efforts to restart a lot of shuttered nuclear power plants around the world. One such plant being considered for
Apizza! (Score:1)