It seems certain that the NSW and Queensland governments will have to take significant write-downs on the value of the fleet of coal-fired power generators, and the assets may not be able to be sold because of the radical reshaping of the Australian electricity market.
The NSW government is seeking buyers for its coal-fired generators, and a price of $3 billion, and the Queensland government is mulling over recommendations that they should do the same. Any sale of those assets would likely be held in 2015/16.
But are they worth anything? Industry insiders say there are unlikely to be any buyers at the price the governments are expecting- because black coal-fired generation is becoming increasingly sidelined by the unanticipated fall in demand, the impact of renewables such as rooftop solar and wind farms, and the effects of the carbon price. Many of the black coal-fired generators are operating at barely more than half their capacity, as the concept of baseload generation gradually recedes.
And the growth of renewables has not just reduced demand in the case of rooftop solar, it is changing the nature of the markets, requiring more flexible generation capacity to respond to changes in output and demand. Black coal fired generators are poorly equipped to meet this requirement, and to falling prices, so some 3000MW of capacity in Australia has been closed in the last 18 months, some of it permanently.
Australia is not unique in this case, because it is a well documented impact in Germany, where power producers have decided not to invest in any new baseload generation beyond the ones that have already commenced production. In the US there is a similar story, with base load generators, including nuclear ones, pushing back on renewable energy targets for fear it will undermine their own business case.
Baseload generators are often described as low cost, but they rely on midday peaks which can push the prices as high as $10,000/MWh to boost their profits. Around one quarter of generator revenues are sourced from 40 hours of such peaks a year.
Pick up a recent report from any mainstream energy analyst – local and international – and it’s pretty clear what’s going on here: thermal coal prices have slumped because demand is falling. This, in turn, is causing coal mines to lose money, and the economic case for massive new investments in new coal mines and infrastructure – largely based on a widely discredited “business as usual” scenario – is disappearing rapidly.
What’s behind all this? Well, the biggest drive is the actions of the world’s biggest coal consumer – China. Its major ports are currently overstocked with imports that are not required because of a fall in demand, which in turn has caused the closure of half of its mines in some regions. The country itself has announced a cap on coal consumption of 4 billion tonnes (just over half of what Australian coal miners had assumed they would consume) and has reinforced this by flagging the introduction of emissions caps by 2016.
It seems certain that the NSW and Queensland governments will have to take significant write-downs on the value of the fleet of coal-fired power generators, and the assets may not be able to be sold because of the radical reshaping of the Australian electricity market.
The NSW government is seeking buyers for its coal-fired generators, and a price of $3 billion, and the Queensland government is mulling over recommendations that they should do the same. Any sale of those assets would likely be held in 2015/16.
But are they worth anything? Industry insiders say there are unlikely to be any buyers at the price the governments are expecting- because black coal-fired generation is becoming increasingly sidelined by the unanticipated fall in demand, the impact of renewables such as rooftop solar and wind farms, and the effects of the carbon price. Many of the black coal-fired generators are operating at barely more than half their capacity, as the concept of baseload generation gradually recedes.
Traditional wisdom has been that China is building massive numbers of new coal-fired plants, and that such development would continue forever. However, two new indicators seem to be telling a different story.
The first and arguably most important indicator is the weak economic performance of China’s coal power sector, which accounts for more than half of China’s coal consumption. China’s State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) reportedthat almost all coal-fired plants have been losing money since last year. Investment in coal-fired plants in 2011 was not even half of what was invested in 2005. About one-third of the proposed new coal–fired plants that have been approved are delaying the start of their construction, resulting in a big slowdown in newly added coal power capacity. In fact, based on the number of coal-fired plants completed this year so far, newly installed capacity is likely to be only half of what was installed last year.
This dramatic decrease in new coal development is mainly a result of China’s economic slow-down and weaker demands for new energy. It is also a result of the long-standing electricity sales price freeze imposed by the Chinese government on the power sector.
Another important trend not to be overlooked is the rising public concern over coal’s environmental and health impacts. In response to unprecedented deterioration of the environment, public awareness of environmental problems is rising rapidly. The number and scale of local social unrest incidents against pollution are mounting across the country, many of which are related to coal-fired plants. Some of these incidents have gotten international attention. In December 2011, for example, nearly 30,000 local residents protested against the expansion of a coal-fired power plant in Haimen, Guangdong Province. The project was quickly suspended after the protest turned violent.
The world’s largest coal mining company – Coal India – is looking to innovative solution to reduce its own energy bills: it’s installing solar energy.
The company, which is listed but government controlled, and which accounts for more than 80 per cent of coal production in India, is installing a 2MW plant at its Sampalbur coal plant in Odisha. It plans to install solar at its operations across the country, including at its mining research arm, the Central Mine Planning and Design Institut.
Officials told local media DNA that the installation of solar PV at mines and staff housing areas is aimed at reducing Coal India’s own energy bills.
But the most striking aspect of the decision is the company’s own recognition that fossil fuels are depleting, and that solar is approaching grid parity.
“India has an abundance of sunshine and the trend of depletion of fossil fuels is compelling energy planners to examine the feasibility of using renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, and so on,” Coal India’s bid document said.
Another state-owned coal company, Neyvili Corp, as well as Oil India, are also venturing into the solar market, Neyvili is building a 10MW solar PV plant with an option to upgrade to a 25MW facility.
Across India, around 2.3GW of solar is expected to be installed by 2016, with more expected as distributed solar provides cheaper options that sourcing electricity from the grid.
I don't think people need to have the truth hidden from them to act rationally. I don't see a solution to our problems, but this doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. If people are told that things are getting better when they aren't, they can't make plans or work towards solutions that might work for them - or for many of us.
So the rational man, who at least wants the species to survive, works on the core issue. Population. Managing the population crash, or not, determines where the bottom is. If we manage it we have a much better chance long-term than if we don't. Just because it is a scary ugly problem does not mean we shouldn't work on it as the number one priority. If we ignore it and just hope for the best as the cornucopian/dreamer/optimists like to do we are going to get a much worse result.
OK, Jim, if I understand you what is going to happen is that we are not going to cut our CO2 levels but endure a major population crash.Actually, the establishment of a basic social conscience within societies and between nations would do wonders for population growth and population levels. Due to a combination of the demographic transition and the fact that it's just so damn hard for younger people to get anywhere in life these days mean fertility rates in developed nations are often below replacement levels (particularly excluding migrant communities).QuoteSo the rational man, who at least wants the species to survive, works on the core issue. Population. Managing the population crash, or not, determines where the bottom is. If we manage it we have a much better chance long-term than if we don't. Just because it is a scary ugly problem does not mean we shouldn't work on it as the number one priority. If we ignore it and just hope for the best as the cornucopian/dreamer/optimists like to do we are going to get a much worse result.
So how do we do this? Do we build some enclaves to protect an elite breeding stock and pass out cyanide tablets for everyone else so that we can die painlessly?
What's your plan?
Hence I think flint knapping is as good a place to start as any
I've split this into another topic, as I think it doesn't really fit under "coal".QuoteHence I think flint knapping is as good a place to start as any
Excuse me, but that's simply silly.
Someone asked for a solution? Stop burning coal (and oil and gas as next steps) and use renewables - the feasibility is allready proven by some countries. But start that transition right now, because it is less easy if you have to do it fast.
It may cost 1k$/person/year - that sounds really cheap when you guys talk about 75% die... why should they die instead of trying a bit harder?
With the coal producers association projecting 18% growth by 2020
It’s been a bad week for the thermal coal industry.
The commodity’s biggest consumer, China, appears serious about curbing its demand, thermal coal mines are losing money; coal generators are closing down, Queensland has had to introduce a captive buying arrangement to protect its state-owned generation assets, WA’s expensive revamp of an ageing and dirty Muja power station is proving to be a disaster, and the head of Australia’s coal industry has had a scripted meltdown, blaming the industry’s woes almost entirely on “environmental extremists”.
What’s going on with coal? The new lows in demand for electricity from coal-fired power plants in Australia have people wondering if this is the carbon price doing its thing. That is what the Labor Party claims, releasing analysis today that shows power generated by coal power plants has fallen 14 per cent since the introduction of the carbon price, while renewable power has soared.
But there’s a lot more at work here than just the carbon price. According to a commodities special report released on Thursday by Deutsche Bank, what’s happening in Australia and in the global coal market is part of a major shift in rational decision making about energy supply and demand.
The report, Thermal Coal: Coal at a Crossroads, says coal markets face a combined threat of steadily growing supply in the largest producing regions and a levelling-off or decline in demand in consuming regions.
“We believe this trend will develop out of emissions control standards, higher renewables output, a structural shift in the Chinese economy, improved transport infrastructure, and stagnating US demand,” the report says. And it points to three of the world’s most important demand centers – China, Europe and the US – as containing “the seeds of a softening in demand growth.”
“As demand disappoints versus producer expectations, rational decision-making will require that major expansion projects be delayed,” Deutsche Bank says. The same kind of rational decision-making that has seen plans for more than 150 new coal-fired power plants cancelled in the US since the mid-2000s – and predictions that upwards of 200 coal-fired generating units will be retired across America in the coming years.
Germany could try much harder as it does. Scandinavia showed us allready the way, so it can be done if one has the will. The will is missing in most countries and alibis are used instead.
When coal production slumps it will be a cause for celebration, but since 2000 it's increased by 39%.I'm left with a nagging thought in the back of my mind - we know coal isn't exactly in immediate danger of running out and liquid fuels are likely around production peak - there is a real threat that "coal to liquid" takes off.
The realities of electricity generation require using some type of fuel to generate a base load. That requires very large facilities running at constant state.
Whether China can reduce coal consumption remains to be seen. The main issue in China is air quality, but where do they get the natural gas to solve that problem?
I don't recall India being mentioned and India is suffering an electricity shortage. I also expect Brazil to become a major player.
Australia may be one of the most coal-dependent economies in the world, but by the end of this decade, it may have one of the greenest global grids.
A new analysis of government data compiled by Green Energy Markets finds Australia on track to not only hit 22% renewables by 2020, but reach an unprecedented 51% of all electricity by 2050.
Two major factors are empowering this paradigm shift: rapid growth of solar energy and the gradual phase-out of oil and brown coal – the two most carbon-intense energy resources.
..
Electricity consumption in the National Electricity Market fell 5.5% (11,400
GWh) from 2008 to 2012, with more than half of this reduction attributable to solar and energy efficiency activities supported by Government market based schemes.
Distributed generation from rooftop solar PV and solar water heater systems are considered by the government as reductions in demand. Good thing, as one million Australian homes now have rooftop solar.
FRANKFURT, June 7 (Reuters) - German hard coal consumption and imports were up in the first quarter of 2013 and power exports were also higher mostly due to hard-coal fired production, coal importers lobby VDKI said in a statement on Friday. Production of power from hard coal fired generation plants was roughly 7.7 percent up year-on-year at 42 terawatt hours (TWh), it said in estimates based on official figures and VDKI calculations. Input of hard coal into total power generation in that quarter rose by 14.5 percent to 14.5 million tonnes of hard coal equivalent. Coal burn and imports are often converted into hard coal equivalent depending on the coal's calorific value to achieve price comparability. Imports of steam coal for power plants rose 25 percent to over 10 million tonnes in the three months, VDKI said, citing its own estimates.http://www.xe.com/news/2013/06/07/3385585.htm? (http://www.xe.com/news/2013/06/07/3385585.htm?)
India's coal production has increased at a 5-year compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6% to 540 million tonnes (mt) in FY2012. Over the last few years, the increase in production has come almost entirely from non-coking coal. Production of coking coal has increased at a low rate mainly because of lower production by Coal India Limited (CIL).http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-14/news/37100382_1_coal-imports-coal-demand-coal-production (http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-14/news/37100382_1_coal-imports-coal-demand-coal-production)
Rising prices has ensured improved financials for CIL during FY2010-12. Although competition from alternate suppliers and imports is likely to increase considerably over the medium-term, the dominant position of CIL is unlikely to be impacted.
Consistently increasing demand-supply gap, increased production, steady reduction in workforce, and productivity improvement measures are the factors which may have a positive impact on CIL's profitability on a consolidated basis. However, performance variations across subsidiaries may continue.
India's energy supply and demand is likely to be dominated by coal for many decades to come, primarily because of its lower costs and abundant availability. Compared with limited oil and gas reserves, India's coal resources and reserves are enormous. As a result, even under a wide range of scenarios, coal is expected to contribute between 44% and 51% of the India's energy supply by 2035, compared with 42% in 2010.
Coal is expected to continue to be the main source of electricity generation, with its share increasing from 68% in 2010 to 68.6% in 2035. Coal is expected to remain India's most competitive fuel choice for power generation over the next 2-3 decades.
In industry, coal is expected to be primarily used in steel and cement production, and is expected to be the main fuel used. Although world demand prospects for coal could increasingly be dependent on climate change policies, such factors could have less influence in developing countries such as India, which could place a higher value on economic growth and security of energy supply than on environmental objectives. Because of the long life of coal-fired power plants, and the higher cost of building advanced plants, alternate infrastructure will come into operation only very gradually.
The EIA report also suggests U.S. coal production will increase by 1% in 2013 and 1.3% in 2014, primarily due to an expected rise in natural gas prices from 2012 levels. The relative increase in US natural gas price, compared to coal, will also increase the share of coal in electricity generation. The EIA report suggests coal’s share in electricity generation in 2013 will reach 39.5%, up from 37.4% in 2012.It's worth looking at that article in full.
Admittedly, the dominance of coal as a source of electricity generation has diminished with the availability of other fuel sources. However, as per an EIA report, coal will continue to be the major source of electricity generation in the U.S. until 2035.
In contrast, petroleum and nuclear power as sources of power generation have been losing market share, displaced by the strong growth of renewable sources of generation and natural gas-fired generation. Petroleum is losing out to coal because it is becoming increasingly expensive. After the Japan earthquake/tsunami in 2011, nuclear power’s contribution to total energy generation has declined from the prior year."
China’s economic recovery has stumbled and coal demand there is down but it remains largest producer and consumer of coal in the world, and accounts for almost half of the world's coal consumption.http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=CH (http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=CH)
Well, some of us find projections which expect coal use to increase and others (actually only I) find projections which show coal use to decrease.
Time, obviously, will tell.
In the meantime, your collective pessimism has beaten me down.
USSR collapse?
According to the EIA link posted above, USSR mined 881,836,000 tons of coal in 1990. Production dropped nearly in half in the early 1990s (in former Soviet republics), and only recovered to about 500,000,000 tons in 2011. So yes, Neven, the Soviet Union collapse does account for the early 1990s coal slump. Other countries subsequently picked up the production slack, and then some.
Since the 1990s, SO2 emissions have dropped 40%, and according to the Pacific Research Institute, acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976.[34][35] However, although it reduced emissions by 40%, the US Acid Rain Program has not reduced SO2 emissions as much as the conventional regulation applied in the European Union (EU), which reduced SO2 emissions by more than 70%.[36] Therefore, the effectiveness of the emissions trading element as a mechanism has been criticised, since the EPA also used regulations to achieve the reductions, as all areas of the country "had to meet national, health-based, air quality standards that are separate from the Acid Rain Program’s requirements".[37]
In the United States, a switch from coal to gas in power generation helped reduce emissions by 200 million tons, bringing them back to the level of the mid-1990s.
gg
If the US & Australia stopped using and exporting coal the resulting price bump on the world market might be enough to lower coal use globally. This would be the time for such policies since natural gas prices are low, once they've rebounded the window will have closed. India and China would still be burning domestic coal, but other importers might switch to a better alternative (and almost anything is a better alternative).
Export bans might provide more bang for the buck than other carbon reduction policies & while it's still far too little and far too late it would at least give the US some credibility with other nations that have taken global warming more seriously.
Terry
According to RET, Australia exported about 70 percent of its coal production in 2009-2010, or about 322 MMst. According to the Australian Coal Association, Japan was the destination for 43 percent of Australia's coal exports during Australian fiscal year 2009-2010. Other important export markets included South Korea (15 percent), China (14 percent), and India (11 percent). About 8 percent of Australia's coal exports went to Europe.
Coal exports are serviced by 9 major coal ports and export terminals located in Queensland and NSW. These terminals in 2009 had a combined handling capacity of 400 MMst. Several new port infrastructure projects are in various stages of development and are expected to add about 130 MMst to annual coal export capacity by 2014. These include the Dalrymple Bay capacity expansion and the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group's capacity expansion at the Port of Newcastle.
Coal's share of total domestic power generation in the first four months of 2013 averaged 39.5%, compared with 35.4% during the same period last year
The 2008 Climate Change Act established the world’s first legally binding climate change target. We aim to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% (from the 1990 baseline) by 2050.The official policy at the link has many fine words.
the Government intends to allow coal stations to bid for three-year capacity payment contracts that they could use to upgrade existing facilities, which will allow them to continue operating beyond 2020, when EU air pollution and acid rain rules come into effect. Analysis by Greenpeace suggests that suppliers could be in line to expect £240m of subsidies per coal station over the three years – even though the improvement would have no effect on the amount of CO2 the plants emit.
Under the Energy Bill, 12 of Britain’s existing 18 coal power stations that could stay open will be exempt from the Government’s emissions performance standard (EPS) that sets limits on CO2 emissions for all new power generation. While the EPS will stop new coal power stations being built without carbon capture and storage, it will not apply to existing plants. That exemption goes against a pledge made by David Cameron in opposition.
The Independent 22 July 2013 (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/consumers-to-pay-dirty-coal-power-subsidies-for-years-8724925.html)
Britain’s fledgling shale gas industry will get a major boost today as George Osborne cuts taxes on fracking profits to less than half the amount paid by conventional oil and gas producers.It just goes on.
Under the Chancellor’s regime, shale gas producers will pay just 30 per cent tax on their profits, compared to the 62 per cent that the oil and gas industry has traditionally paid.
The tax regime is designed to attract investment into what Mr Osborne hopes will be a major new industry for Britain and puts shale gas on a par with a handful of conventional oil and gas fields – such as deepwater sites – which are viewed as particularly difficult and high-risk to develop.
Mr Osborne said: “Shale gas is a resource with huge potential to broaden the UK’s energy mix. We want to create the right conditions for industry to explore and unlock the potential in a way that allows communities to share in the benefits.”
He will reiterate plans to force shale gas companies to give local communities at least £100,000 per well in the hope of persuading them to allow fracking to proceed near their homes.
“This new tax regime, which I want to make the most generous for shale in the world, will contribute to that. I want Britain to be a leader of the shale gas revolution – because it has the potential to create thousands of jobs and keep energy bills low for millions of people,” he added.
The Independent 19 July 2013 (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-reveals-50-tax-break-for-fracking-firms-8718711.html)
Six coal plants with a combined capacity of 4,536 megawatts are due to start generating in Germany this year, according to data from the Bundesnetzagentur grid regulator. That compares with shutdowns of four plants with as much as 623 megawatts this year.
“Coal plants are the only plants that can be operated at profit at the moment, and that’s why their share is rising and rising,” Kemfert said June 27 by e-mail.
the share of electricity generated from coal rose from 43 percent in 2010 to 52 percent in the first half of this year
To fill the gap, her government wants utilities to build 10,000 megawatts of modern gas- and coal-fired generators this decade, replacing older plants. She also unleashed a boom in wind and solar power construction.
So far, mainly coal plants have gotten the go-ahead. Gas plants, which run mostly in the middle of the day when demand peaks, are losing money as the surging number of wind and solar plants flood the grid with cheap power.
Operators of coal-fired plants will make a profit of 8.85 euros a megawatt-hours if they run their units next month, based on current coal, power and emission prices for the period. Gas-fired plants post a loss of 18.74 euros a megawatt-hour, according to a calculation by Bloomberg.
“Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said on June 10.
Coal is favored because the cost of pollution is so low. Certificates to offset a ton of CO2 on the European Union emissions control market have averaged $4.32 so far this year compared with $17.18 in 2008.
National Coal is the second firm to exit the mountaintop removal mining business. National Coal’s decision was preceded, last November, by Patriot coal which settled with the Sierra Club and its allies over Clean Water Act mining pollution violations in West Virginia.https://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2013/06/national-coal-exit-surface-mining-business (https://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2013/06/national-coal-exit-surface-mining-business)
As Nation environment correspondent Mark Hertsgaard points out, during Obama’s first term a vibrant organizing effort successfully blocked construction of more than one hundred new coal-fired power plants, “thereby imposing a de facto moratorium on new coal in the United States.” Their actions, he argues, “limited future U.S. greenhouse gas emissions almost as much as the cap-and-trade bill would have done.”http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/climate-of-change-what-does-an-inside-outside-strategy-mean (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/climate-of-change-what-does-an-inside-outside-strategy-mean)
“The shale gas phenomenon has been funded mostly by debt and equity offerings. At this point, further debt and share dilution are less feasible for many companies”
Many US shale companies that have been beating the drums of shale “revolution” are now facing oil and gas well depletion. In February 2013 the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) warned that “diminishing returns to scale and the depletion of high productivity sweet spots are expected to eventually slow the rate of growth in tight oil production”.
“The cheap price bubble in the US will burst within two-to-four years,” believes David Hughes, a geoscientist and former team leader on unconventional gas for the Canadian Potential Gas Committee. “At a high enough price, the supply bubble will burst perhaps 10-to-15 years later, when drilling locations become sparse.”
Consumption will increase by 5.8pc from 2012 to 942mn short tons (854.5mn metric tonnes). In 2014, consumption is expected to grow more moderately, at a rate of 1.8pc to 959mn st, it said.
A 2012 International Energy Agency report estimated that nearly 25 percent of India's population still has [no access] to electricity, while electrified areas suffer from rolling electricity blackouts, both issues which New Delhi is anxious to resolve.
The global increase in coal consumption rests squarely with China. While the world as a whole saw an increase in coal consumption last year of 101.3 Mtoe, China’s increase alone was 112.5 Mtoe. India added another 27.7 Mtoe....
Interestingly, most of the countries that saw the sharpest percentage increases in coal consumption from 2011 to 2012 were in Europe. Portugal led all countries with a 31.4% increase in coal consumption in 2012, followed by Chile (25.1% increase), Spain (24.2% increase), the UK (24.0% increase), New Zealand (21.3% increase), and France (20.1% increase). Many of the countries experiencing sharp growth in their percentage of coal consumption are countries heavily associated with pushes to renewable energy, or that have a strong nuclear power portfolio (France).
But global coal consumption has increased by 16.6% over the past five years, because those increasing their coal consumption tend to use a lot of coal. The top percentage increases over the past five years were Argentina (157% increase, but still a small user overall), Chile (76.4% increase), Columbia (70.1% increase), Malaysia (62.0% increase), and Bangladesh (58.3% increase). Of the heavy users of coal, China saw their consumption climb by 41.9% while India’s was right behind them with a 41.8% increase.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests coal’s days are numbered -- although that number could be quite large.... A good summary of anti-coal factors, from August.
While the confluence of factors is significant, particularly in Europe and the US, the sheer scale of legacy coal assets globally combined with growing power needs in Asia, will prevent coal’s quick exit from the world stage. The Global Renewable Energy Market Outlook (GREMO) we have developed at Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that under a range of scenarios coal will only account for 10-12% of total power capacity additions between now and 2030. But despite this collapse in new capacity additions, its share of global installed generation capacity will only fall from 36% in 2013 to 21-23% in 2030.
This is almost entirely down to China. The country will add 88GW of new power plants annually from now until 2030 – the equivalent of building the UK’s total generating capacity every year. While China’s power capacity will more than double by 2030 and renewables will account for more than half of new plants, coal will still continue to grow rapidly until 2022. We estimate that China will add on average 38GW per year of new coal capacity – equal to three large coal plants every month. So despite a clear shift to cleaner sources of energy in China, carbon emissions and local environmental problems resulting from coal will probably continue to worsen in the next 10-15 years. ...
....Our sense is that Old King Coal will be around for longer than many might like.....
Train drivers working for Australian miner Rio Tinto make as much as A$240K (US$224K) per year to haul ore. According to BLS data, that is as much as surgeons in the US, and more than the $151K average of New York State lawyers.
Rio, which last year approved spending of $7.2 billion to expand the iron ore operations, is aiming to have the world’s first, fully automated, long-distance and heavy-haul rail system operating in 2015. Its automated rail will have 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) of track, 10,000 wagons and individual train sets 2.3 kilometers long, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. The company is spending $518 million on the program that was announced last year.
Rio also plans to automate about 40 percent of its Pilbara truck fleet by 2016. The goal is to reduce costs to $15.60 a ton by 2020, from $23.10 a ton in the first half of this year, Paul Young, a Sydney-based analyst with Deutsche Bank said in a report after touring operations last month, citing Rio data. Automation is set to help shave $1.90 a ton off costs and boost output by 20 million tons, or 5 percent, he said.
It is noted that the complexities of costs are a big driver in coal consumption. Currently many coal produces are not operating at a profit or their costs are requiring pricing which reduces demand as energy users switch to lesser costs fuels like natural gas. This situation, of course, results in cost cutting by coal produces to recover profits and become more competitive with natural gas. Rising natural gas prices over time (especially in the US) are likely and this will cause coal to become more competitive again. So how do the coal companies cut costs on the other side of the equation? Well here is one way.
Note this information is about an iron ore mine. But my point is that eliminating high paid jobs via automation is a sure way to lower costs. It is after all one of the prime ways the US is increasing productivity.QuoteTrain drivers working for Australian miner Rio Tinto make as much as A$240K (US$224K) per year to haul ore. According to BLS data, that is as much as surgeons in the US, and more than the $151K average of New York State lawyers.
$224K per year!!! Full disclosure. I worked on the Burlington Northern railroad for a time when I was younger and I can assure you that this is very simple work and could easily be automated and am surprised a bit that it has taken so long. Though when I worked the typical train had 4 workers on it and the norm is now 2. But zero makes perfect sense with modern technology.QuoteRio, which last year approved spending of $7.2 billion to expand the iron ore operations, is aiming to have the world’s first, fully automated, long-distance and heavy-haul rail system operating in 2015. Its automated rail will have 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) of track, 10,000 wagons and individual train sets 2.3 kilometers long, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. The company is spending $518 million on the program that was announced last year.QuoteRio also plans to automate about 40 percent of its Pilbara truck fleet by 2016. The goal is to reduce costs to $15.60 a ton by 2020, from $23.10 a ton in the first half of this year, Paul Young, a Sydney-based analyst with Deutsche Bank said in a report after touring operations last month, citing Rio data. Automation is set to help shave $1.90 a ton off costs and boost output by 20 million tons, or 5 percent, he said.
There is nothing about hauling coal that is functionally different than iron ore. This type of technology will proliferate. We have large farm tractors today which need no human driver and setting up a system for very large mine trucks and trains is even simpler to do due to the controlled environments.
I expect this type of technology to have an impact over the next 10 years or so.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-02/rio-replacing-train-drivers-paid-like-u-s-surgeons.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-02/rio-replacing-train-drivers-paid-like-u-s-surgeons.html)
There is nothing about hauling coal that is functionally different than iron ore.
Pricing of fossil fuels is not the best metric to use but economists understand it so they use the hammer on the nail they know. "Real" price has an effect on demand and has all sorts of interesting effects on how our economies run. But...Why would EROEI be better indicator than price? It's the price that makes a difference in markets, not EROEI. As long as EROEI stays above 1:1 then it makes sense to exploit it. But if price is too high then it's not gonna happen because it's not gonna be profitable. Or alternatively: some other source may be more profitable and market turns to this other source (that's also the point of puting price in carbon).
the real kicker is the EROEI of the fuel.
Why would EROEI be better indicator than price? It's the price that makes a difference in markets, not EROEI.
..Visibility shrank to less than half a football field and small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard in one northern Chinese city as the region entered its high-smog season...
....For the large northern city of Harbin, the city's heating systems kicked in on Sunday, and on Monday visibility there was less than 50 meters (yards), ...
....The density of fine particulate matter, PM2.5, used as an indicator of air quality was well above 600 micrograms per cubic meter — including several readings of exactly 1,000 — for several monitoring stations in Harbin, according to figures posted on the website of China's environmental protection agency. They were the first known readings of 1,000 since China began releasing figures on PM2.5 in January 2012, and it was not immediately clear if the devices used for monitoring could give readings higher than that.
..But between now and 2040, the country will need to build 340,000 megawatts of generating capacity - or the equivalent of 15 of China's massive Three Gorges Dam - to meet growing demand from consumers and replace retiring plants, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)....
...Last Tuesday, a NAM-supported effort to challenge the rules cleared an important hurdle when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case. The regulations, which critics call a "war on coal," will cost industry "tens of billions of dollars per year," according to the petition to the high court.
Few people have heard of coal gasification, which is the process of creating synthetic natural gas out of coal by setting it on fire and injecting it with oxygen and water. But even fewer people have likely heard of underground coal gasification, which is the process of doing that while the coal is still deep underground.
...Local residents and environmental groups are fighting the project, saying it is an untested process that only promises to contaminate their already dwindling water supply with deadly benzene. If approved, the project — located in part of a major regional aquifer — would likely receive federal exemption from the Safe Water Drinking Act, a law that protects the quality of drinking water.
On Nov. 14, the Wyoming Environmental Quality Council will review Linc Energy’s application for a “state research and development” license to drill thousands of feet into Wyoming’s portion of the Powder River Basin.
....
..[UCG] involves drilling two wells – at some distance from each other – into the coal seam. The first well supplies oxidants (a mixture of water and air or water and oxygen), which are injected into the location where the process is actually occurring. The second well permits the syngas produced to escape under pressure to the surface. This gas contains approximately 80% of the original energy content of the coal, and is a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane....
.. UCG plants only emit carbon dioxide, which according to a 2010 paper by UK’s Newcastle University, makes it perfect for pairing with carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS is the process of capturing carbon dioxide emissions before they are emitted into the atmosphere and storing them deep underground.
If, however, UCG is not paired with CCS, it could result in massive carbon emissions, according to an article in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “If an additional 4 trillion tonnes [of coal] were extracted without the use of carbon capture or other mitigation technologies atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels could quadruple,” the article said, “resulting in a global mean temperature increase of between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius.”
...
...that UCG paired with CCS is a way to mitigate climate change effects from fossil fuel burning, but also noted that projects where coal seams were located next to prolific aquifers were extremely likely to experience groundwater contamination from benzene.
In fact, groundwater contamination from benzene is one of the main reasons that a UCG project has not happened in the United States in almost two decades. In the late 1970s, the U.S. Department of Energy conducted three pilot-scale test burns in Campbell County at a UCG project known as Hoe Creek, which caused benzene contamination in the area’s groundwater.
That contamination from the test burns allegedly cost the federal government $10 million and took 23 years to clean, according to a protest letter from a Wyoming family that lives near the proposed project....
From 2007 to 2012, the governments of developed countries invested almost $35 billion in coal plants internationally.
Throw in coal mines and other related activities, as well as the financing in all three areas in 2013 so far, and the total comes to just over $59 billion, according to figures compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
...
...Nearly pure carbon, petcoke is a potent source of carbon dioxide if burned, which has led to it being banned as a domestic fuel source in the U.S. ..
... U.S. petroleum coke exports January-February 2012 averaging roughly 470,000 barrels per day. The major foreign markets for U.S. petcoke export markets are China, Japan, India, Brazil, Turkey, and Mexico. While petcoke is not as valuable as other higher-priced U.S. petroleum product exports such as gasoline and diesel fuel, it was nevertheless a major contributor in 2011 to the United States becoming a net exporter of petroleum products for the first time since 1949....
...A major player in these petcoke exports is now the Oxbow Corporation, owned by William I. Koch, selling 11 million tons annually.
The logic is pretty straightforward. Carbon dioxide emissions are threatening the planet. In the U.S., coal plants are the second-largest source of those emissions, after transportation. Therefore, the Environmental Protection Agency should impose emissions limits on coal-fired plants.....
...As I discussed in a recent blog, the U.S. coal power industry has been in decline for several years now. Coal-fired electricity fell from about half of U.S. generation in 2008 to 37 percent in 2012. Going back to 2009, nearly 21 GW of coal power capacity has already retired (6 percent of the U.S. coal fleet), and another 34 GW of coal generators has been announced for closure. ...
....When compared with natural gas, 329 coal-fired power generators in 40 states — representing 58.7 GW of power capacity — failed our economic test (see map). This total includes 69 coal units (17.8 GW) that are new to our ripe for retirement list for this 2013 update.....
...Thanks to new technology developments that have lowered the costs of new wind projects and increased electricity production, our new analysis shows wind power could play an even greater role than natural gas in replacing existing coal plants.
The analysis shows that retrofitting 71 gigawatts (GW) of existing U.S. coal capacity with modern pollution controls would be more expensive than the cost of building new wind projects with the federal production tax credit (PTC) included. This is 12 GW, or 21 percent, higher than our core scenario comparing coal to the cost of increasing generation at existing natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants.
...
...LBNL data shows these higher capacity factors combined with reductions in capital costs has resulted in a 43 percent drop in U.S. average power purchase prices (PPAs) for wind over the past 3 years (from ~$70/megawatt-hour (MWh) in 2009 to below $40/MWh in 2012).....
JimD......this is why I feel that conservation is a more effective way for reducing emissions. It would require drastic lifestyle for every consumer.
Since we do not have the intellectual or willpower fortitude to do what is needed we will just mosey along with BAU until we get enough concern in public opinion to convert to BAU-Green methods of progress and growth. Then we will collapse because neither approach addressed the fundamentals of the problem.
I guess I am in a dark mood today even though it is pretty sunny outside.
Some more interesting reading on coal issues.
In China. BAD smog.Quote..Visibility shrank to less than half a football field and small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard in one northern Chinese city as the region entered its high-smog season...
....For the large northern city of Harbin, the city's heating systems kicked in on Sunday, and on Monday visibility there was less than 50 meters (yards), ...
....The density of fine particulate matter, PM2.5, used as an indicator of air quality was well above 600 micrograms per cubic meter — including several readings of exactly 1,000 — for several monitoring stations in Harbin, according to figures posted on the website of China's environmental protection agency. They were the first known readings of 1,000 since China began releasing figures on PM2.5 in January 2012, and it was not immediately clear if the devices used for monitoring could give readings higher than that.
One would presume that this kind of pollution would add impetus to switching away from coal. But who knows.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/super-smog-beijing-china_n_4134226.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/super-smog-beijing-china_n_4134226.html)
In The Face Of Historic Smog, China Adds $10 Billion In New Coal Production Capacity
The desolation of smog in China? Forget it.
Despite experiencing the worst air pollution on record in 2013, China last year approved the construction of more than 100 million tonnes of new coal production capacity at a cost of $9.8 billion, according to a report compiled Wednesday by Reuters. The increase in coal production in 2013 was six times bigger than the increase in 2012, when the administration approved just four coal projects with 16.6 million tonnes of annual capacity and a total investment of $1.2 billion.
In other words, in just one year, China added coal production capacity equal to 10 percent of total U.S. annual usage.....
Australia is pumping out more carbon emissions to achieve its economic growth than almost any other major economy, while a quarter of its mammal species are threatened with extinction, according to a major new environmental audit.
A report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found Australia was second only to Estonia among 34 advanced nations in terms of greenhouse gas emission intensity per unit of gross domestic product (GDP)....
...Australia has the highest per capita emissions intensity of any OECD member, the report found, emitting nearly 25 tons of carbon dioxide per person in 2010...
Australia Great Barrier Reef dredge dumping plan approved
Australian authorities have approved a project to dump dredged sediment in the Great Barrier Reef marine park as part of a project to create one of the world's biggest coal ports.
The decision was made by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Scientists had urged it not to back the project, saying the sediment could smother or poison coral.
Several companies want to use the Abbot Point port to export coal reserves from the Galilee Basin area.
Climate change is real and man-made. It will come as a big surprise that climate change from 1900 to 2025 has mostly been a net benefit, rising to increase welfare about 1.5% of GDP per year. Why? Because global warming has mixed effects and for moderate warming, the benefits prevail. The increased level of CO? has boosted agriculture because it works as a fertilizer and makes up the biggest positive impact at 0.8% of GDP. Likewise, moderate warming avoids more cold deaths than it incurs extra heat deaths. It also reduces the demand for heating more than increases the costs of cooling, totalling about 0.4%....
The benefits brought by the available power that is now in individual hands as a result of the Industrial Revolution are manifest in virtually every aspect of our daily lives. To maintain and spread that wealth of benefits through the expanded use of electricity to an increasing global user market the IEA projects that there will be an increase in virtually all power sources for electricity over the next twenty-five years.
But the increases in power costs do not just impact the competitive advantage of industry. As prices rise, so the poorer segment of the community find it harder to meet all their living needs. There is a graph that shows their choices:
It is the broad use of coal that keeps the prices of power in many countries low, and the ability of many to utilize a domestic resource allows developing countries the opportunity to climb the ladder faster than the rates that they would be able to achieve without this resource.
Slowing growth in developing countries has started to affect the commodities market, especially for coal, as orders are slashed and prices have fallen as much as 10 percent in a month. Commodities are often closely linked to the success of developing economies, whose demand for energy increases as wealth increases and infrastructure is improved.
Green ambition
The production cost of solar power in India has fallen by more than half in recent years, from 17 rupees ($0.27) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) three years ago to 7.50 rupees per kWh currently, according to Kapoor, and it could plummet further. But these costs are still high compared to coal (2.50 rupees per kWh), nuclear (3 rupees per kWh) or natural gas (5.5 rupees per kWh), says Mohanty
Gas rose as much as 4 percent after reaching a five-year high of $6.40 per million British thermal units in intraday trading yesterday. MDA Weather Services said temperatures may be lower than normal in the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. from Feb. 26 through March 7. Government data yesterday showed that stockpiles tumbled 250 billion cubic feet to 1.443 trillion in the week ended Feb. 14, the least for that period since 2004.
This time Jacobson showed in much finer detail how New York State’s residential, transportation, industrial, and heating and cooling sectors could all be powered by wind, water and sun, or “WWS,” as he calls it. His mix: 40 percent offshore wind (12,700 turbines), 10 percent onshore wind (4,020 turbines), 10 percent concentrated solar panels (387 power plants), 10 percent photovoltaic cells (828 facilities), 6 percent residential solar (five million rooftops), 12 percent government and commercial solar (500,000 rooftops), 5 percent geothermal (36 plants), 5.5 percent hydroelectric (6.6 large facilities), 1 percent tidal energy (2,600 turbines) and 0.5 percent wave energy (1,910 devices).
JimD
Your information prices the elimination of all fossil fuels, not just coal....
The majority of food will be produced on 3-D food printers -- Big Ag will be using krill, algae, insects and the like to make cartridges of carbohydrate, protein, and fat the printers will use to create food on demand, at a village or cafeteria or household level. (Thus far, printers are making chocolate and pizza, so I'm good for a while!) So food production and its transportation and storage needs will plummet, as will refrigeration needs and most kitchen appliances. Small farms and home gardens will grow food where possible, but to most, "real food" will be a luxury item. Call it Business As New.
China is building a ‘coal base’ the size of Los Angeles
China, faced with ever-worsening pollution in its major cities—a recent report deemed Beijing "barely suitable for living"—is doing what so many industrializing nations have done before it: banishing its titanic smog spewers to poor or rural areas so everyone else can breathe easier. But China isn't just relegating its dirty coal-fired power plants to the outskirts of society; for years, it's been building 16 unprecedentedly massive, brand new "coal bases" in rural parts of the country...
The biggest of those bases, the Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base, spans nearly 400 square miles, about the size of LA. It's already operational, and seemingly always expanding. It's operated by Shenhua, one of the biggest coal companies in the world. China hopes to uses these coal bases not just to host some of the world's largest coal-fired power plants, but to use super-energy intensive technology to convert the coal into a fuel called syngas and use it to make plastics and other materials.
Even France, with its 75% "clean" [sic] nuclear energy power sources, is feeling the brunt of FF pollution these days. The cost of dirty fuel just got that much closer to the cost of replacing it.
http://mashable.com/2014/03/14/paris-air-pollution-crisis/ (http://mashable.com/2014/03/14/paris-air-pollution-crisis/)
......
You haven't mentioned how we will be mining all of the ore we need on the moon and sling shotting it back to earth.
But the Spring Creek mine's owner, Wyoming-based Cloud Peak Energy, believes coal is poised for a comeback. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, sees a long-term horizon for coal.
"Even the EIA projects that 40 percent of America's electricity in the future, in 2030, is going to come from coal," Cloud Peak CEO Colin Marshall told CNBC Thursday. "Internationally, the demand is tremendous," Marshall said....
at Spring Creek, production is steadily returning to what it was after the recession forced many coal producers to cut output as demand and prices slumped.....
The economics of coal are changing, proponents say, particularly for the cleaner, lower-sulfur thermal coal mined in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana. Natural gas prices are rising, making coal competitive again for power plants.....
Cue the polar vortex. The cold blast of arctic air that had settled over much of the country this winter sent power companies into overdrive. Natural gas prices spiked—up 24 percent over the past six months—pushing many utilities to burn less expensive coal instead. Then the weather stayed cold, and many plants burned through their coal reserves to meet the surge in electricity demand.
With spring here and the peak power demand of air conditioning season approaching, coal is more competitive with natural gas than it has been in years. The EIA last week projected the cost of natural gas to average $4.44 per million Btu in 2014. Coal, meanwhile, is projected to average just $2.36 per million Btu....
There is nothing over the next 30 years that will reduce the world's reliance on coal [...]SH - a global treaty could easily do that trick or global carbon emission certificates or just stopp burning that stuff. If the world likes to do that nothing could stop it (or us - since it is not the world but us who should stopp emissions). But probably still most poeple rate "growth" more important than "future" - so we would need some more El Ninos and an ice-free arctic soon before most of us start doing what must be done...
That is one impressive machine! It's a man thing but you gotta love it! ;) ;D :oShared Humanity - it is impressive but the holes it makes in the landscape are even more impressive. That fits quite well in werthers series of destruction: Just surf a bit in that google maps and look at that holes several hundreds meter deep: https://maps.google.de/maps?q=RWE+Power+AG&hl=de&ll=50.967076,6.627502&spn=0.397833,0.837021&sll=51.015051,6.634369&sspn=0.397422,0.837021&t=h&radius=21.84&hq=RWE+Power+AG&z=11
"We think there are between three trillion and 23 trillion tonnes of coal buried under the North Sea," Dermot Roddy, former professor of energy at Newcastle University, told the Sunday Times.They are planning to sink boreholes by the end of 2014.
"This is thousands of times greater than all the oil and gas we have taken out so far, which totals around 6bn tonnes. If we could extract just a few per cent of that coal it would be enough to power the UK for decades or centuries,"
"The big game-changer is seismic imaging, which has become so sensitive that we can now pinpoint the 'sweet spots' where shale gas, oil and coal are to be found.
"There have also been huge improvements in horizontal drilling . . . and in hydraulic fracturing [fracking], which lets us get the gas and oil out of rock. If we put aside the green issues, then in perhaps 10 years we could be self-sufficient in gas and possibly oil too."
"If we put aside the green issues"...
Besides top-down regulations, bottom-up activities are beginning to have some effect today. Due to shareholder demand, Exxon will release an accounting of its unburnable reserves, for the first time. Now, this does not mean they will do anything about it, but it is an important first step.There is nothing over the next 30 years that will reduce the world's reliance on coal [...]SH - a global treaty could easily do that trick or global carbon emission certificates or just stopp burning that stuff. ...
"The Carbon Tracker Initiative’s 2013 report on unburnable carbon and the large amount of shareholder money invested in new carbon reserves prompted Ceres, a group of 70 international investors with more than three trillion dollars in assets, to pressure the top 45 energy companies to assess and report on the risks that a global decrease in carbon demand could pose."Sigmetnow, if we take that carbon trackers initiative seriously (and I really like to do that), than we would have a very sensitive proxy for detecting the point of time, at which green politics is taken seriously by economics - the London stock market. One third of FTSE 100 is fossils - for some reason they are all in London. If green politics is taken seriously by economics one day, they must rate down that "carbon bubble". That will shatter some banks like HSBC. (Source: http://www.zeit.de/2014/08/carbon-bubble-rohstoff-blase/seite-2 (http://www.zeit.de/2014/08/carbon-bubble-rohstoff-blase/seite-2) )
"The big game-changer is seismic imaging, which has become so sensitive that we can now pinpoint the 'sweet spots' where shale gas, oil and coal are to be found.
(Is there a translation of "Schadenfreude" in any other language??).Schadenfreude is in the English lexicon, too. :)
Coal Emissions Equal an Athabasca Oil Sands Reserve Every 4 Years
.... I have argued that while Keystone XL has mobilized a lot of passion and energy, its threat is minuscule compared to the world’s growing carbon dioxide emissions from coal. Thus, I believe most of the effort being directed at stopping Keystone XL would be better directed at the world’s coal emissions.
Some took exception to this....
...estimated that burning the entire 170 billion barrel Athabasca reserve could raise global temperatures by 0.03°C. If you could actually burn all the oil in place, the calculated global temperature rise could be as great as 0.50°C. But you have to take into consideration the amount of time this would actually take. Even if Canada’s oil industry grew to 10 million bpd (putting it on par with Saudi Arabia and Russia), it would take slightly over 500 years to produce the 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in place. And that’s making the unrealistic assumption that you could produce all the oil in place.
Here is a more defensible assessment. In 2012, Canada produced 3.74 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil. The oil industry there has been increasing production by 3.1% per year over the past decade. At that growth rate, Canada could reach Saudi Arabia’s production level in 2045. If we assume that level of production could be maintained, it would take until 2070 to produce the 170 billion barrel Athabasca oil sands reserve. At that point, the temperature impact is estimated to be 0.03°C
Now consider the carbon dioxide impact of oil sands versus coal. Per the US Environmental Protection Agency, consumption of a barrel of oil produces 0.43 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Oil sands are more carbon intensive to extract, adding an additional 17% to the overall carbon footprint of the barrel of oil. So let’s assume that consumption of a barrel of oil sands produces 17% more, or 0.50 metric tons of carbon dioxide per barrel. That means consumption of the 170 billion barrels of Athabasca oil sands could result in an additional 85 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere. For just Keystone XL, over the course of 30 years it would carry oil that would generate 3.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Make no mistake, that’s a lot. But it’s relatively small given the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, hence the small temperature impact.
Now, let’s compare coal. Again, using the same EPA reference, burning a metric ton of coal produces 2.56 metric tons of carbon dioxide. In 2012, the world consumed about 7.6 billion metric tons of coal, which means 19.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide was emitted. At that rate, the world’s coal consumption emits as much carbon dioxide as the entire Athabasca oil sands reserve every 4.4 years — and the global rate has been accelerating. Or, in terms of just Keystone XL, the emissions from 30 years of transported crude is equal to a bit over 2 months of global coal emissions....
Quote[...] That means consumption of the 170 billion barrels of Athabasca oil sands could result in an additional 85 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere. For just Keystone XL, over the course of 30 years it would carry oil that would generate 3.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Make no mistake, that’s a lot. But it’s relatively small given the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, hence the small temperature impact.
Now, let’s compare coal. Again, using the same EPA reference, burning a metric ton of coal produces 2.56 metric tons of carbon dioxide. In 2012, the world consumed about 7.6 billion metric tons of coal, which means 19.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide was emitted. At that rate, the world’s coal consumption emits as much carbon dioxide as the entire Athabasca oil sands reserve every 4.4 years — and the global rate has been accelerating. Or, in terms of just Keystone XL, the emissions from 30 years of transported crude is equal to a bit over 2 months of global coal emissions....
I think you are all able to get the error in this kind of stories...Maybe I want to be a bit more explicite with that:
That is humans' happy race to death ...
There is such a thing as leadership. People can be inspired by efforts to move to low carbon emissions.I have been convinced here, that at least USA would not except foreign leadership.
Is that the official policy, or at least the predominant attitude, in Germany now, would you say?Wili, I am not in the position to give statements about the official policy here. But I think such official policies are overrated - you are able to clearly see what countries do or do not: USA never signed any international treaty about emission reduction and I agree to your conclusions that the planet is "truly and utterly screwed" because of this. EU did sign such contracts and did some reductions - but the effect is tiny and in vain, since nobody likes to follow. In contrary some countries did exit the Kyoto protocol.
Do you see any chance that USA could sign a treaty in Paris next year? What could be done to convince the American poeple to do so? Would they agree to shut down "Bakker in Dakota" and "Athabasca oil sands" in Canada if Germany shuts down "Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier"?
Note: It is the 2016 election we need to really be worried about. Should the Republicans win the Presidency then it will likely make the problems we have now and the new ones generated by this years election seen small in comparison. Not that Hillary Clinton would be much different than Obama if she won, but the alternative is scary. Things can certainly get worse.
Note: It is the 2016 election we need to really be worried about. Should the Republicans win the Presidency then it will likely make the problems we have now and the new ones generated by this years election seen small in comparison. Not that Hillary Clinton would be much different than Obama if she won, but the alternative is scary. Things can certainly get worse.
Do you honestly believe it makes a real difference which party gets in? The sound bites might vary a little but on the whole I would say policy has been almost rock steady from one party to the next.
The illusion of choice, the pacifier of the masses, a convenient scapegoat to shield the corporations when the wheels really start to come off... what else are the politicians any good for?
...In many ways, utilities are already ahead of policy makers. With nuclear reactors idled for safety checks, Japan’s 10 power companies consumed 5.66 million metric tons of coal in January, a record for the month and 12 percent more than a year ago, according to industry figures.
For renewable energy environmental groups, Japan’s policy is a mixed bag offers little in the way of policy direction. Instead, it backs the status quo, calling for reactors shut after the 2011 disaster to be restarted while offering no targets for the amount of power coming from wind and solar.
“What had been expected of the basic plan was to present a major policy to switch from nuclear power,” the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation said in a statement. “But the basic plan shows that the government has given up to fulfill that role. The plan does not promote a shift from old energy policies.”
“It’s crucial to have diverse energy sources for a country like Japan, which relies on imports for all energy,” said Akira Yasui, an official in charge of coal policy at the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry. “Our basic stance is to use coal while caring for the environment as much as possible. Coal is economical and stable in supply.”
Abe’s government is supporting the development and export of advanced coal technology from Japan. According to a growth strategy released in June by the prime minister, the nation intends during the 2020s to commercialize A-USC technology. It’s also seeking to sell a equipment that combines fuel cells with a process called integrated gasification combined cycle to improve the efficiency of power generation.
“By applying Japan’s most advanced coal technology, the U.S., China and India can reduce a combined 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year,” far above Japan’s total emissions, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan’s trade minister, told parliament in February.
Of the 10 biggest coal-consuming countries, half are considered highly water-stressed... using more than the annually available freshwater supply.http://tcktcktck.org/2014/04/wri-coal-power-increasingly-threaten-global-water-resources/61752 (http://tcktcktck.org/2014/04/wri-coal-power-increasingly-threaten-global-water-resources/61752)
...
It is predicted that world water supply could fall 40% short of demand by 2030.
On Tuesday, Washington [state] Gov. Jay Inslee signed an executive order that creates a task force on reducing carbon emissions and directs it to design a “cap-and-market” program to meet emission goals. That program would set firm limits on carbon emissions and binding requirements to meet the limits.
Elsewhere in the northwest, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is also taking strong stands against climate change. In an April 19 keynote address to the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Kitzhaber said “it is time to once and for all to say no to coal exports from the Pacific Northwest.”http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/30/3432504/washington-climate-change-fight/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/30/3432504/washington-climate-change-fight/)
Oregon is home to one of three proposed coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest that would allow for coal producers in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana to ship coal to Asia. Those plans have spurred a broad-based opposition movement stretching from the northern Plains to the coast and including environmental activists, Native American tribes and ranchers.
Kitzhaber said he expects a state agency to reach a final decision on the proposed port on the Columbia River in Oregon by the end of May.
But the governor said he would “do all that I can within the context of existing Oregon law to ensure that we do not commit ourselves to a coal-dependent future….The future for Oregon and the West Coast does not lie in 19th century energy sources.”
Like this, from a Citibank report last November: “We believe that thermal coal demand is in structural decline as a result of both increasing environmental pressure and declining cost competitiveness compared to alternatives for power generation.”http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/NEWS/BUSINESS/2014/04/26/THE-END-COAL/1398434400#.U2F4nLS9KSP (http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/NEWS/BUSINESS/2014/04/26/THE-END-COAL/1398434400#.U2F4nLS9KSP)
Not only was gas generally cheaper in most of the world, Citibank said, wind power was rapidly achieving parity, and solar would become competitive within a decade.
An analysis by the respected, if greenish New York company Sanford C. Bernstein and Co found this month that solar was already cheaper across much of Asia than gas, meaning photovoltaic power no longer needed subsidies to compete with fossil fuel. While solar was yet a small part of the energy mix, Bernstein said, its rise could see it begin to depress fossil fuel prices within a decade.
...
This is a big deal, he says, when you consider China accounts for about half the world’s coal consumption. “And between 2007 and 2012, China accounted for all the growth in coal consumption; absent China, it fell globally.”
Australia’s Queensland government is calling on citizens to boycott ice cream brand Ben and Jerry’s after it offered its support to WWF’s campaign to save the Great Barrier Reef.http://tcktcktck.org/2014/04/australian-minister-calls-ben-jerrys-boycott-save-reef-campaign/61817 (http://tcktcktck.org/2014/04/australian-minister-calls-ben-jerrys-boycott-save-reef-campaign/61817)
The campaign – Fight for the Reef – aims to protect this natural wonder of the world from the threat of widespread, rapid and damaging industrial developments taking place in Queensland.
But recent data released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) showed that newly installed coal and gas power capacity in China fell 38.9 per cent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, a sign that the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix are slowly coming down.
New renewable energy and nuclear capacity grew in the same period. Since the beginning of last year, non-fossil fuels have accounted for nearly 60 per cent of new power capacity.
“The reduction in coal-fired capacity is due to the economic slowdown,” Li Junfeng, director general at government think-tank the National Center of Climate Change Strategy, told Reuters.http://climatecrocks.com/2014/05/02/coal-plants-toppling-in-china/ (http://climatecrocks.com/2014/05/02/coal-plants-toppling-in-china/)
“But the reduction is also a result of the crackdown on air pollution,” Li told Reuters.
QuoteBut recent data released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) showed that newly installed coal and gas power capacity in China fell 38.9 per cent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, a sign that the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix are slowly coming down.
New renewable energy and nuclear capacity grew in the same period. Since the beginning of last year, non-fossil fuels have accounted for nearly 60 per cent of new power capacity.Quote“The reduction in coal-fired capacity is due to the economic slowdown,” Li Junfeng, director general at government think-tank the National Center of Climate Change Strategy, told Reuters.http://climatecrocks.com/2014/05/02/coal-plants-toppling-in-china/ (http://climatecrocks.com/2014/05/02/coal-plants-toppling-in-china/)
“But the reduction is also a result of the crackdown on air pollution,” Li told Reuters.
As the end of coal continues to loom larger on the horizon, a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has blown trench-sized holes in the industry’s latest attempt to talk up its future, dismissing the myth of coal alleviating poverty in the developing world.http://tcktcktck.org/2014/05/new-report-busts-myth-coal-alleviating-poverty-developing-world/61871 (http://tcktcktck.org/2014/05/new-report-busts-myth-coal-alleviating-poverty-developing-world/61871)
...
"The new report makes the case that renewables are far better for developing nations as they are already cost competitive with coal, will get cheaper over time, can be built faster, do not impact public health, and require no on-going fuel costs.
The cost of electricity generation from solar power in India has fallen 65% in the last three years alone, while average coal prices are projected to escalate by 4% a year in rupee terms due to the cost of fuel.
Coal is bad for the climate, bad for public health, and bad for business; and it will entrench, not alleviate, poverty in the developing world.
"Stanford has a responsibility as a global citizen to promote sustainability for our planet, and we work intensively to do so through our research, our educational programs and our campus operations," said Stanford President John Hennessy. "The university's review has concluded that coal is one of the most carbon-intensive methods of energy generation and that other sources can be readily substituted for it. Moving away from coal in the investment context is a small, but constructive, step while work continues, at Stanford and elsewhere, to develop broadly viable sustainable energy solutions for the future."http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/may/divest-coal-trustees-050714.html (http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/may/divest-coal-trustees-050714.html)
The resolution means that Stanford will not directly invest in approximately 100 publicly traded companies for which coal extraction is the primary business, and will divest of any current direct holdings in such companies. Stanford also will recommend to its external investment managers, who invest in wide ranges of securities on behalf of the university, that they avoid investments in these public companies as well.
Bowie Resource Partners LLC wanted to export coal from the port of Oakland, California, promising thousands of construction jobs and a $3 million-a-year payroll in a city whose unemployment rate was almost double the national average.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-13/coal-missing-boom-as-climate-foes-clean-asia-s-backyard.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-13/coal-missing-boom-as-climate-foes-clean-asia-s-backyard.html)
Oakland’s response: No, thanks.
“We weren’t going to sell our souls here,” Jack Fleck, a retired engineer and Oakland resident who spoke out against Bowie’s plan, said by phone on May 12. “Whatever the economic benefit would’ve been, it wasn’t worth destroying the planet over.”
There is nothing over the next 30 years that will reduce the world's reliance on coal [...]SH - a global treaty could easily do that trick or global carbon emission certificates or just stopp burning that stuff. If the world .....
There is nothing over the next 30 years that will reduce the world's reliance on coal [...]SH - a global treaty could easily do that trick or global carbon emission certificates or just stopp burning that stuff. If the world .....
I think that you are missing the point here. .......the Chinese communist party have never been inclined to act for the good of the rest of the world. They look after mainland China, first, last and always.
Stephen, if you would be from China, I would accept your point. If not, I think you are missing the point here completely. Since USA never signed any treaty on reduction of CO2 emissions, it can not blame others for not signing that, too. You are responsible for what your country is dooing, since you are a democracy or at least could become one after a revolution. By no means you are able to blame other countries if you do not better (so I think I may say this just because my poeple signed such treaty).There is nothing over the next 30 years that will reduce the world's reliance on coal [...]SH - a global treaty could easily do that trick or global carbon emission certificates or just stopp burning that stuff. If the world .....
I think that you are missing the point here. The point is that China burns most of the world's coal and the Chinese communist party have never been inclined to act for the good of the rest of the world. They look after mainland China, first, last and always. Sure they are also the world's largest producers of solar, nuclear, hydro and wind power. But their power demands are so huge that they will continue to mine and burn more and more coal.
And no international agreements will ever make the slightest bit of difference.
It would be nice to read some opinions from China here...
Sorry TerryM, I am not wrong. The responsibility of the poeple for their country persists in a democracy as well as in any other systems - since the poeple could change each system anyway. I do not see lots of signs in the US-streets shouting for CO2 reduction...
While you are correct regarding the responsibility of U.S. citizens in driving decisions, I think you are seriously overestimating the power of the American public to influence decision making in the political process.While you are correct regarding the violence history of reformations in U.S.A. I think you are overestimating the will of the poeple to acutally reduce CO2 now. They are probably separated in <10% permaculture radicals and >50% radical-fossil BAU poeple and the rest does not mind at all. So I think right now your politics follows quite well the majority of your poeple. And since green BAU and such compromises are irrelevant (outside California at least), there is no party in the middle of your society going for an international treaty to reduce CO2 emissions.
A new series of reports from global investment bank Citigroup has highlighted the dramatic changes that are sweeping the world’s largest energy markets -- events which will have a significant impact on the future of the coal industry.Regarding India, Citi says coal imports are likely to be capped at lower-than-expected levels because consumption will be lower than forecast.
The trio of reports -- A New Balance of Power, A Short Gas Bridge to Renewables, and Global Thermal Coal: When Cyclical Supply Met Structural Demand -- come to several key conclusions.
The first is that emission standards and rising costs will force a mass closure of coal-fired generation (more than 60 gigawatts) in the next few years in the world’s biggest market, the United States. And contrary to most expectations, the reports say gas will play only a minor role in this “energy transformation,” because it will be overtaken due to the falling costs of renewables.
The second conclusion is that increasingly strict environmental measures are severely limiting the feasibility of opening new coal plants, not just in the U.S. and Europe, but also in China – which for the past few years has dominated the global coal market and has been the world’s biggest consumer and importer.
In short, Citigroup says, the evolution in electricity markets is being driven by a combination of regulatory and technology changes.
China's increasing efforts to shift away from coal to cleaner fuels could put annual investments of around $21 billion at risk of being stranded, a research report estimated on Thursday.http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKKBN0EG01320140605?i=2 (http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKKBN0EG01320140605?i=2)
...
Chinese coal companies spent around $21 billion in 2013 on exploring and developing coal resources, despite a government push to use more natural gas, nuclear power and renewables to generate power.
Based on estimates from the International Energy Agency for coal demand in 2020 under "business as usual" and "new policies" scenarios, the report said that up to 437 gigawatts of installed coal capacity could be at risk in 2020.
That would equal 40 percent of expected installed capacity by that year.
The report said companies such as Shanxi Coal International Energy Group (600546.SS) and Datang International Power Generation Co (601991.SS) were at risk from high debt levels amid falling coal prices, while poor quality of coal produced by China Coal Energy Co (601898.SS) could put that company at risk if there were strategic shutdowns.
Falling consumption would also have an impact on coal producers worldwide, because China is the world's biggest coal importer, the report said.
"This risk is of notable interest to Australian and Indonesia exporters," it said.
China plans to cap its coal consumption from 2015 at 3.9 billion tonnes and has banned the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the region surrounding Beijing as well as in the Yangtze and Pearl river deltas. Those regions have been told to make absolute cuts in consumption.
He Jiankun, a top climate adviser to the government, said at a conference earlier this week he expected consumption to peak at around 4-4.5 billion tonnes between 2020 and 2025.
What’s Wall Street’s reaction to Obama’s new proposal to attack climate change? A big fat “Meh.”www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/06/obama_s_carbon_emissions_proposal_hasn_t_destroyed_the_economy.html (http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/06/obama_s_carbon_emissions_proposal_hasn_t_destroyed_the_economy.html)
As of Friday afternoon, the stock market had reached record highs. It’s clear that, at least from the perspective of industry and business leaders, the much-feared “war on coal” isn’t going to wreck the economy. In fact, the new rules probably won’t change things much at all.
A proposed $10 billion Australian coal port expansion, one of two port expansions planned near the Great Barrier Reef, was shelved by its sponsors on Friday who pointed to a lack of demand for the extra capacity.http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINKBN0EV0L020140620 (http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINKBN0EV0L020140620)
China, meanwhile, is moving ahead on plans to address its pollution problem by phasing out coal, with the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau announcing on Monday that the districts of Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai and Shijingshan would stop using coal and its related products, and close coal-fired power plants and other coal facilities, by 2020.
According to official Chinese government statistics, coal use accounted for 25.4 per cent of the capital’s energy consumption in 2012 – a figure that is expected to shrink to less than 10 per cent by 2017.
But while low prices might be causing pain for coal mining firms they can provide relief for coal-fired electric utilities in tightly regulated markets like China, Baruya says. These firms are prevented from passing on cost increases to consumers but will have become more profitable as a result of low coal costs.
Even if the cost of coal were to rise substantially, coal-fired power is likely to remain much cheaper in Asia than power from gas. Exports of shale gas from the US won't change that. Even though the gas is cheap, transport costs are not.
Will low coal prices lead to a surge in coal-fired power output and emissions? That depends, says Baruya. Power output cannot grow in a vacuum: there needs to be a corresponding rise in demand as a result of GDP growth.
The indications are that structural changes are at work, Sussams continues.
For example US coal consumption grew last year but that is unlikely to last as its overall electricity needs have fallen.
Sussams expects to see a structural shift to lower economic growth and coal demand in China, as it moves from a workshop-based to a consumer-based economy. The country's troubles with smog are another reason to expect structural change in the demand for coal.
There is a wide range of predictions for peak coal in China. Sussams says he's seen dates ranging from 2015 to 2030. Recent discussions of a possible carbon emissions cap make an earlier coal peak for China more plausible, he says.
Expected US and EU coal-plant closures probably won't counterbalance new Asian additions, Baruya thinks, so that line [global coal consumption] won't be turning south just yet.
That means despite the woes of some in the coal industry analysts are arguing that rumours of the death of coal have been greatly exaggerated. Predictions from the IEA, BP and others are for coal demand to keep on rising for years to come.
Very little will dent the developing world's "prodigious" appetite for coal-fired power according to Reuters market analyst John Kemp.
He writes:
"There is no conceivable energy future over the next 30 to 40 years in which coal does not play an enormous role."
...
All this means that without new efforts to curb coal use or install carbon capture facilities, coal remains likely to steer the world towards dangerous climate change - whether coal prices stay low or not.
Their report, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, says existing power plants fired by coal and gas will generate more than 300 billion tons of atmosphere-clogging carbon dioxide over the next 40 years.
They calculate that “committed” emissions – those coming from plants already in operation – will rise by about 4 percent each year as industry builds even more coal and gas fired plants. Their study is the first to quantify the rate at which such emissions grow.
The report estimates that just the new plants built around the world in 2012 will emit 19 billion tons of carbon dioxide during their expected four decades of operation. That’s significantly more than the 14 billion tons of CO2 emissions produced by all the plants operating worldwide built before 2012.
"The general principle of commitment accounting is shown schematically in figure 1. Two views are contrasted for the case where a new device, when built, is expected to run for five years and to emit one unit of CO2 each year. Today’s carbon accounting would report annual emissions of one unit of CO 2 in each of the five years of operation. Commitment accounting instead assigns all five units to the year when the device begins to operate (figure 1(a)). We call these anticipated emissions‘ committed emissions ’ or simply ‘ commitments. ’ Figure 1(b) presents the same device three years after it begins to operate and shows (below the line) the initial commitments that have been realized as emissions and those that remain commitments. We depict realized and remaining commitments as negative numbers to re fl ect the fact that net commitments will be zero when fully realized.
‘Committed’ does not mean inevitable. If the device in figure 1 was shut down after operating only four years, its remaining commitment would go to zero, and both committed and realized emissions would be shortened to four units in all subsequent representations. Conversely, if the device continued to operate after fi ve years, both committed emissions and realized emissions would be increased by one unit each year until the device was retired." (p. 2)
"Global committed emissions from these generators total 629 (508 – 761) Gt CO 2 (light green area; only the central estimate reflecting a 40 year lifetime is shown), of which 322 Gt CO 2 were realized emissions by 2012 (black area), and 307 (192 – 439) Gt CO 2 were remaining commitments as of 2012 (dark green area). The error estimates in parentheses here are for assumed lifetimes of 30 and 50 years."
"For instance, we estimate that the ‘ New Policies ’scenario in the IEA ’ s World Energy Outlook 2013 entails new global commitments of roughly 5 Gt CO 2 yr – 1 of coal generators and 3 Gt CO 2 yr – 1 of gas generators between 2012 and 2020, while the ‘ 450 scenario ’ would require overall reductions in the commitments from existing coal- fi red generators ( − 0.5 Gt CO 2 yr – 1 between 2012 and 2020, e.g., by early retirement or CCS retro fitting) and allow new commitments of ∼ 2 Gt CO 2 yr – 1 of gas generators over the same time period (assuming new generators with the lowest plausible carbon intensity given their fuel type) [24]. In comparison, figure 3(c) shows that gas generators brought online in 2012 represented ∼ 5 Gt CO 2 of new commitments — roughly twice the level of commitments in the IEA scenarios." p. 8
Looks like the US might have hit peak coal about the same time as hitting peak CO2.
(https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi619.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt275%2FBob_Wall%2FUSCoalProductionConsumption.png&hash=92a4053183c3a97b103650319806ce2b) (http://s619.photobucket.com/user/Bob_Wall/media/USCoalProductionConsumption.png.html)
(https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi619.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt275%2FBob_Wall%2FCO2DropbyRegion.png&hash=6bd786084566fa99fd2796ddf4a31c6f) (http://s619.photobucket.com/user/Bob_Wall/media/CO2DropbyRegion.png.html)
Looks like the US might have hit peak coal about the same time as hitting peak CO2.
(https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi619.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt275%2FBob_Wall%2FUSCoalProductionConsumption.png&hash=92a4053183c3a97b103650319806ce2b) (http://s619.photobucket.com/user/Bob_Wall/media/USCoalProductionConsumption.png.html)
(https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi619.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt275%2FBob_Wall%2FCO2DropbyRegion.png&hash=6bd786084566fa99fd2796ddf4a31c6f) (http://s619.photobucket.com/user/Bob_Wall/media/CO2DropbyRegion.png.html)
In part, this just captures the dramatic contraction in the U.S. economy during the "Great Recession".
The BP 2013 Statistical Review of World Energy was released Wednesday.
Coal remains the worlds fastest growing fossil fuel.
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Coal/26015975 (http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Coal/26015975)
http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/statistical-review-of-world-energy-2013.html (http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/statistical-review-of-world-energy-2013.html)
You might want to see if coal consumption and CO2 emissions have turned back up toward the 'bad old days' as we've recovered from the Great Recession.
Bob you express the same grasping at straws reaction that is crippling our chances of ever having a chance of substantially altering our future prospects.
.....
Even if 5 years from now the world is consuming only 80% of the coal we do now we will still be fucked. And that result would constitute a miracle.
“A leaked draft of the (IPCC) report sent to governments in December suggests that in order to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) by the end of the century — the stated goal of international climate talks — emissions need to fall by 40-70 percent by 2050.”
http://www.evwind.es/2014/04/05/what-is-the-future-of-fossil-fuel/44609 (http://www.evwind.es/2014/04/05/what-is-the-future-of-fossil-fuel/44609)
Basically, this is how I feel. Until we are able to decouple the economy and its need for growth from fossil fuels, we are in deep trouble.
Basically, this is how I feel. Until we are able to decouple the economy and its need for growth from fossil fuels, we are in deep trouble.
Do you mean in the way that China has managed to decouple their economic growth from their use of coal?
(https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi619.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt275%2FBob_Wall%2F2014-08-18-china1-thumb.png&hash=c7ff85375ca50c0a710fd7977fc4cde7) (http://s619.photobucket.com/user/Bob_Wall/media/2014-08-18-china1-thumb.png.html)
China is working hard on installing renewables. The U.S.? Not so much.
"CO2 (July to July) rose on average 2.07 ppm 2007 to 2013. July 2013 to July 2014 the increase was 1.80% That's 13% less than the previous six year average."
Oh, pullease.
Please don't cherry pick.
It just makes you look like a denialist.
After downloading annual CO2 levels, an 1.8 pmm is not unusual. Year to year variation is fairly large.
During the last 10 years the amount of growth has ranged from 0.89 ppm (2004) to 3.17 ppm (2005).
wili - you link 2012 data. I gave you 2013 and 2014 data that shows no growth of coal use in China past 2012. In fact, a slight reduction in the first half of 2014.
How about we all leave 2012 behind and look at what is happening in the world in 2014?
| China 49.5 United States 11.1 India 10.0 Russia 3.4 Germany 3.3 Japan 2.5 South Africa 2.5 Poland 1.8 Korea, South 1.7 Australia 1.6 Kazakhstan 1.2 Ukraine 1.0 Indonesia 0.9 Taiwan 0.9 Greece 0.9 United Kingdom 0.8 Czech Republic 0.6 Canada 0.6 Thailand 0.5 Bulgaria 0.5 Romania 0.5 Spain 0.3 Brazil 0.3 Malaysia 0.3 Italy 0.3 Vietnam 0.3 Mexico 0.3 Philippines 0.2 France 0.2 Israel 0.2 Hong Kong 0.2 Netherlands 0.2 Hungary 0.2 Mongolia 0.1 Chile 0.1 Slovakia 0.1 Pakistan 0.1 Slovenia 0.1 Finland 0.1 Colombia 0.1 Denmark 0.1 Austria 0.1 Portugal 0.1 New Zealand 0.0 Belgium 0.0 Uzbekistan 0.0 Sweden 0.0 Iran 0.0 Ireland 0.0 Argentina 0.0 Bangladesh 0.0 Croatia 0.0 Egypt 0.0 Norway 0.0 Guatemala 0.0 Lithuania 0.0 Latvia 0.0 Honduras 0.0 Venezuela 0.0 Luxembourg 0.0 Panama 0.0 Nicaragua 0.0 Jamaica 0.0 Uruguay 0.0 Paraguay 0.0 |
So if you live in the West, and you tend to get your news sources from the West, you might believe that global coal consumption is on the decline.
But you would be very wrong...
...coal’s gains in the developing world are shocking...
...The global coal markets are the story of skyrocketing consumption in the Asia Pacific region that far more than offsets the consumption declines in the West.
...China, which has only enough reserves for 31 years of production at its 2013 consumption rate.
U.S. power companies have shut or converted over 15,000
megawatts (MW) of coal-fired power plants since 2009 and have plans to shut or
convert nearly 36,000 MW over the next 10 years or so.
In September, ACCCE estimated that more than 200 coal-fired generating units — more than 31,000 megawatts of power — would be shut down across 25 states due to EPA regulations and other factors inducing cheap natural gas.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/03/report-epa-rules-to-shut-down-more-than-280-coal-fired-units/#ixzz3C5rvzVns (http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/03/report-epa-rules-to-shut-down-more-than-280-coal-fired-units/#ixzz3C5rvzVns)
Assuming these stations will operate for 40 years, the power plants constructed globally in 2012 alone will produce about 19 billion tons of CO2 during their existence, the researchers project.
"Bringing down carbon emissions means retiring more fossil fuel-burning facilities than we build," said Steven Davis, assistant professor of Earth system science at UCI and the study's lead author. "But worldwide, we've built more coal-burning power plants in the past decade than in any previous decade, and closures of old plants aren't keeping pace with this expansion."
"Far from solving the climate change problem, we're investing heavily in technologies that make the problem worse," he added.
According to the study, the CO2 emissions that will come from existing power plants represent a substantial portion of the emissions budget that would keep global temperatures from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius relative to the preindustrial era – the current international target.
Power plants now operating in the U.S. and Europe account for about 11 percent and 9 percent of committed emissions, respectively, but these commitments have been steady or declining in recent years.
Increasing worldwide commitments, therefore, reflect the rapid growth of China's power sector since 1995, as well as new facilities in such developing countries as India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Plants in China and India represent 42 percent and 8 percent of committed future emissions, respectively.
About two-thirds of these emissions from the power sector are due to coal-burning stations. The share of commitments related to natural gas-fired generators – which emit less CO2 per unit of energy than coal – has escalated from about 15 percent in 1980 to 27 percent in 2012, as more such plants are being put into use.
Assuming these stations will operate for 40 years
Greenpeace, the environmental NGO, said in a recent analysis of China’s coal sector that growth in coal imports, which had been going up at an annual rate of between 13 percent and 20 percent in recent years, has come to a virtual halt.
Meanwhile, the official Xinhua news agency says Beijing – a city of nearly 12 million people – will ban the sale and use of coal in its six main districts by 2020.
Coal-fired factories and power plants around the Chinese capital are being shut down and replaced by natural gas facilities. Coal generated 25 percent of Beijing’s energy in 2012, and the aim is to bring that figure down to less than 10 percent by 2017. Other cities and regions are following Beijing’s lead.
Just how meaningful these cutbacks in coal use are is difficult to gauge. Air pollution – much of it caused by the burning of low-grade thermal coal − is not only a big environmental issue in China but also a political one as well.|
China’s leaders have promised a population increasingly angry about the low quality of the air they breathe and the water they drink that the government is determined to tackle pollution.
A coal-fired power station at Yangzhou in China’s central Jiangsu province. Latest figures indicate that change is on the way for China.
Yet coal-fired power plants are still being built at a considerable pace, and many more are planned.
The decision that Assistant District Attorney Robert Kidd and I reached today was a decision that certainly took into consideration the cost to the taxpayers in Somerset, but was also made with our concerns for their children, and the children of Bristol County and beyond in mind. Climate change is one of the gravest crises our planet has ever faced. In my humble opinion, the political leadership on this issue has been gravely lacking. I am heartened that we were able to forge an agreement that both parties were pleased with and that appeared to satisfy the police and those here in sympathy with the individuals who were charged. I am also extremely pleased that we were able to reach an agreement that symbolizes our commitment at the Bristol County District Attorney's Office to take a leadership role on this issue.http://m.thenation.com/blog/181525-charges-were-just-dropped-against-these-climate-activists-most-stunning-way (http://m.thenation.com/blog/181525-charges-were-just-dropped-against-these-climate-activists-most-stunning-way)
Some scientists say the 2°C increase could happen if average carbon concentrations reach 405 ppm...
Coal miner New World Resources (NWR), controlled by Czech billionaire Zdenek Bakala, has secured the support of bondholders for a restructuring plan that will help it avoid bankruptcy.
"The company has received an overwhelming degree of support for the transaction: 99.4% in value of the holders of secured notes and 95.3% in value of the unsecured noteholders present and voting at the meetings," NWR said in a statement on its website on August 29.
The deal, which is still conditional on courts' approval, will reduce NWR's outstanding debt by EUR 325mn to EUR 500. It includes raising a total of EUR 185mn via a EUR 118mn rights issue, a EUR 32mn placing and a EUR 35mn credit facility.
Loss-making NWR has been hit by falling coal prices and weak demand from its steel industry customers. The miner posted a seventh consecutive loss in Q2 of EUR 30.2mn, narrower than in the same period of 2013 when it had a loss of EUR 319.1mn.
http://bankruptcy.einnews.com/article/222464652/a3UWz1ruNJ61OCQI (http://bankruptcy.einnews.com/article/222464652/a3UWz1ruNJ61OCQI)
The US Energy Information Administration Tuesday lowered its estimates for coal-fired electricity generation in 2014-2015, while natural gas and renewables were revised higher.
The EIA's updated forecasts were included in its September Short Term Energy Outlook.
Coal-fired electricity generation for all sectors, including residential, commercial, and industrial, was revised 0.8% lower to 4.502 million MWh/d from 4.541 million MWh/d in 2014, and 0.6% lower to 4.374 million MWh/d from 4.398 million MWh/d in 2015.
Natural gas-fired generation was revised 0.4% higher to 2.995 million MWh/d in 2014, and 0.3% higher to 3.112 MWh/d in 2015.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/washington/coal-fired-power-generation-in-us-revised-lower-21204700 (http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/washington/coal-fired-power-generation-in-us-revised-lower-21204700)
Poland's state-owned coal mines produced 34.1 million mt of hard coal in the first half of the year, down 7.6% year on year, the Ministry of Economy said in a report released Tuesday.
The mines also made a net loss of Zloty 772.3 million ($237.2 million) in the period due to falling prices and rising costs, the report said.
Europe's thermal coal market was characterized by "low demand, high levels of stockpiled coal and strong competition from alternative energy sources (above all renewable energy and natural gas)," which led to the lowest weekly coal price index in four years, the report said.
Thermal coal production in Poland in January-June totaled 28.45 million mt, down 8% year on year, while coking coal production fell 5.6% to 5.66 million mt.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/warsaw/poland-h1-hard-coal-output-falls-76-on-year-ministry-26876730 (http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/warsaw/poland-h1-hard-coal-output-falls-76-on-year-ministry-26876730)
New natural gas-fueled power generators are quickly coming online across the country as the U.S. continues its move away from coal.
Natural gas produced from the U.S. fracking boom is fueling many new power plants nationwide, and it is often seen as a more climate-friendly alternative to coal-fired power plants because it emits relatively little carbon dioxide. Natural gas distribution systems, however, leak methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
The U.S. added nearly 2,200 megawatts of natural gas power generating capacity in the first six months of 2014, up 60 percent over the same period in 2013, according to the EIA report.
Solar is growing fast, too, as more than 1,100 megawatts of new solar power generating capacity came online in the first six months of 2014, up 70 percent over the same period last year.
New wind power capacity grew less than half as much as solar early this year. Wind farms added 675 megawatts of wind power capacity in that time, all from new wind turbines built in California, Nebraska, Michigan and Minnesota.
NPR (National Public Radio) just ran a story
The headlines this morning were impressive. “China dumps our dirty coal,” trumpeted the Sydney Morning Herald, in response to news that China was looking to impose import rules that could disqualify much of Australia’s coal because it was of such lousy quality.
...
Whether these rules prove to be so damaging or not, it is yet another development that has underlined the fact that the reign of coal is in terminal decline. China has signalled that it will cap coal consumption and cease to be an importer, as it focuses on cleaner generation. India is baulking at the infrastructure nightmares of coal and focusing on a “saffron revolution” instead, boosting solar. The US is likely to scrap one quarter of its coal generation within the next five years.
As Goldman Sachs said in a report just a few months ago, the window for profitable capital spending in new thermal coal mining and infrastructure capacity “has closed.” Numerous other reports from leading investment banks have supported that view. Even the International Energy Agency has questioned the wisdom of more coal investment.
... pushed on by a powerful mining lobby, international investors have already fled the scene. As this graph below shows, listed coal investments have been a disaster over the last few years.
The top graph shows the Bloomberg Coal Index, an average of 40 stocks, has slumped two thirds since 2011. The second graph shows how that same index has compared to the broader benchmark, the MSCI World Index. It highlights, perfectly, the disconnect between coal and the global economy. Divestment decisions by large pension funds are just a matter of common sense.
As we reported on Wednesday, the coal industry is on a terminal decline, and Big Oil will soon follow. It is not just battling falling market prices, the higher costs of extraction, and the likelihood of tighter climate rules, it is also losing out to new technologies – wind and solar in particular.
As French broking firm Kepler Chevreux pointed out, $100 billion invested in either solar or wind energy will actually deliver more net energy to consumers than $100 billion invested in oil. And it will be cheaper. Within 10 years, Kepler Chevreux says, the global energy markets will be radically different.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/ (http://reneweconomy.com.au/)
As a Deutsche Bank executive said a couple years back - Coal is a dead man walking.
China, the world's largest coal producer as well as consumer, is the main driver of the global coal market. Though coal production in China dropped 1.4% annually in the first eight months of the year, it has risen 40% since 2000 and thus still facing a supply glut given the declining demand.http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/147954/black-days-ahead-for-coal-etfs (http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/147954/black-days-ahead-for-coal-etfs)
This is especially true as China is on track to decrease its consumption of coal gradually from 69% in 2011 to 65% in 2017, 63% in 2020 and 55% in 2040, as per the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In addition, the Chinese government has put a ban on the sales or import of coal with 40% or more of ash content and 3% or more of sulfur content effective next year. Since China accounts for about one-fourth of Australia's coal exports, the move will hit most Australian miners, pushing down the prices of coal further.
Further, rising export volumes from Indonesia, Columbia, Russia and other coal producing countries are exerting downward pressure on prices and making the coal export market highly competitive (read: Indonesia ETFs Set to Climb Higher).
Apart from weak global industry fundamentals, the negative outlook is confirmed by a sluggish outlook for Peabody – the largest U.S. coal producer and a bellwether for the space. This is especially true as Goldman Sachs (GS) downgraded Peabody to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ last week, citing persistent pressure on the global coal markets.
2012 data and 2013 estimates.
Might be the latest, but not up to date.
Is coal a sinking ship?http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CTI-Coal-report-Sept-2014-WEB1.pdf (http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CTI-Coal-report-Sept-2014-WEB1.pdf)
The current slump in the coal market puts the coal sector in a weak position. Over the last three years the Bloomberg Global Coal Equity Index has lost more than half of its value during a period when the MSCI World Index has increased by over thirty percent.
In the US, recent years have seen 26 companies go bankrupt – including once-major producers such as Patriot Coal Corp. and James River Coal. Remaining listed US coal miners have debt ratings below investment grade. These companies are having to pay more to borrow, on the assumption that the market for their coal will pick up in the near future. This may just be delaying the inevitable, rather than creating value for shareholders.
Structural decline or cyclical downturn
Coal analysts are already questioning whether the current slump in the seaborne coal market is just the bottom of a commodity cycle, or a trough that the sector cannot escape. The decline of demand in key markets has created oversupply, further weakening prices and devaluing assets.
Murray said he’s helping to fund Republican Party efforts for the November mid-term elections and that global warming is a hoax.
“The insane, regal administration of King Obama has ignored science, economics, our poorer citizens and those on fixed incomes, our manufacturers, and the constitution, as it has bypassed our Congress,” he said today.
Robert Murray, the founder and CEO of US coal miner Murray Energy, offered a gloomy view of the US thermal coal market at Platts' annual Coal Marketing Days conference in Pittsburgh Monday, saying that anyone who believes the US coal industry is poised for a comeback "doesn't understand the industry."
"There is nothing on the horizon to make me think positive about coal markets in 2015," said Murray, who delivered the keynote address at the event.
"We make our cash flow based on being right, and if anything, there is going to be a continued decline internationally and domestically," Murray said.
A passionate supporter of the US coal industry, Murray said he expects the equivalent of 230 million st of thermal coal production to come offline by 2020 as more coal-fired generating capacity is shut because of environmental regulations.
He said the majority of that shuttered coal production will come from the Powder River Basin, where output will be reduced by roughly 160 million st. He added that Northern Appalachia production is expected to decline 11 million st, while production in the Illinois Basin will decline roughly 30-40 million st.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/pittsburgh/us-thermal-coal-industry-faces-continued-slide-21270220 (http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/pittsburgh/us-thermal-coal-industry-faces-continued-slide-21270220)
It’s widely known that Robert Murray, the founder of the country’s largest privately-owned coal company, likes to use colorful language. And on Monday, the Murray Energy Corp. CEO took his personal hyperbole to new heights, saying proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations will have the effect of permanently destroying the coal industry in the United States.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/23/3570853/murray-ceo-coal-grandma-is-going-to-be-cold/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/23/3570853/murray-ceo-coal-grandma-is-going-to-be-cold/)
“It isn’t coming back. It’s permanent,” Murray said at a coal marketing conference in Pittsburgh, repeatedly using the word “destroyed” to describe the state of the industry....
What Murray projects is an eventual decrease in U.S. coal generation from its current rate of 39 percent to between 30 and 34 percent, according to SNL’s report. That means 230 million tons of coal-fired generation lost by 2020, Murray said, and anyone who believes the industry will bounce back is either bad at business or “smoking dope.”
MUMBAI, India — India’s top court on Wednesday canceled years’ worth of coal field leases, a judgment that drew wide attention in a nation with persistent fuel shortages.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/business/international/indias-supreme-court-revokes-hundreds-of-coal-concessions.html?_r=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/business/international/indias-supreme-court-revokes-hundreds-of-coal-concessions.html?_r=1)
The leases, an earlier investigation had found, had been sold below market price and cost the government about $30 billion, a scandal that has added to concerns of corruption and crony capitalism at high levels.
As many as 329 coal-fired power generators in 38 states — representing 58.7 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity — are no longer economically competitive compared to a typical existing natural gas plant. They are ripe for retirement and should be considered for closure.
This 2013 update to the report, Ripe for Retirement: The Case for Closing America's Costliest Coal Plants, also includes a comparison with new wind power facilities and determines that as much as 71 GW of coal-fired generating capacity is uncompetitive with this renewable energy source.
These currently operating, ripe-for-retirement generators are in addition to the 138 coal generators (18 GW) that retired between 2011 and 2013, and the 170 coal generators (35 GW) that have already been announced for retirement as of December 2013. Collectively, these three categories account for more than a third of the country's coal-generating capacity.
A Raleigh County man pleaded guilty Thursday to repeatedly faking compliant water quality standards for coal companies, in a case that raises questions about the self-reporting system state and federal regulators use as a central tool to judge if the mining industry is following pollution limits. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141009/GZ01/141009217/1419#sthash.iG5NsfbP.dpuf (http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141009/GZ01/141009217/1419#sthash.iG5NsfbP.dpuf)
But the industry that Grimes and McConnell have spent so much time and money fighting over is a bit of an illusion, several experts said. Coal has been dying for decades within Kentucky.http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20141008/coal-fired-politics-kentucky-senate-race-bitter-rivals-woo-dying-industry (http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20141008/coal-fired-politics-kentucky-senate-race-bitter-rivals-woo-dying-industry)
Production has plummeted in recent years, dropping 11.8 percent in 2013 to 80.5 million tons, the lowest level since 1963. The number of coal workers dropped from more than 75,000 in the 1940s to 11,885 in 2013. The state lost 2,222 mining jobs in 2013 alone. Coal currently makes up only .06 percent of Kentucky's total employment.
State-owned Coal India, the world's largest miner of the fuel, accounts for more than 80 percent of the country's total production but has failed to raise its output fast enough to cater to the increasing needs of the power sector.http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINKCN0HZ0Z220141010?irpc=932 (http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINKCN0HZ0Z220141010?irpc=932)
Its April-September production fell short of its target of 220.11 million tonnes by more than 9 million tonnes. Coal India's production shortfalls have already made India the third-largest importer of coal despite sitting on the world's fifth largest reserves.
But a Coal India official told Reuters on Friday that the company cannot be expected to supply all the coal that power companies need and that they should import a percentage of their requirement.
Forced by populist governments to sell power at regulated rates, many debt-laden state power companies shy away from importing coal, given the higher costs. Importing coal can cost twice as much as buying it from Coal India.
... when a village is more than 5km from the grid, the cost of supplying electricity from decentralised renewable sources is far below the costs of supplying from conventional sources when grid transmission infrastructure is taken into account.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/take-it-from-us-in-india-the-world-needs-renewables-not-more-australian-exported-coal (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/take-it-from-us-in-india-the-world-needs-renewables-not-more-australian-exported-coal)
...
[Australia's] Abbott said “coal has a big future as well as a big past.” He and the coal companies want us all to believe that coal is inevitable. Coal helped build the economies of developed countries and so it must be the right choice for the rest of us. Yet by that logic, the opium trade and slavery should also be reintroduced, since they also contributed to the enrichment of many countries.
Fall of 1-2 per cent in amount of coal burned offers ‘window of opportunity’ to bring climate change under control, Greenpeace energy analysts say
The amount of coal being burned by China has fallen for the first time this century, according to an analysis of official statistics.
China’s booming coal in the last decade has been the major contributor to the fast-rising carbon emissions that drive climate change, making the first fall a significant moment.
The amount of coal burned in the first three-quarters of 2014 was 1-2 per cent lower than a year earlier, according to Greenpeace energy analysts in China. The drop contrasts sharply with the 5-10 per cent annual growth rates seen since the early years of the century.
"The significance is that if the coal consumption growth we have seen in China in the last 10 years went on, we would lose any hope of bringing climate change under control," said Lauri Myllyvirta at Greenpeace East Asia. “The turnaround now gives a window of opportunity."
Such a turnaround would potentially have a large impact on the biggest coal exporting countries such as Indonesia and Australia, which have profited from China’s demand for the fuel.
At the UN climate change summit in New York in September, China said it would start to reduce the nation’s huge carbon emissions "as early as possible".
Myllyvirta warned that year-to-year fluctuations in energy use and industrial prediction could see coal burning grow again in future. "It may not be the peak yet, but it is a sign that China is moving away from coal." Climate scientists say that global carbon emissions need to peak by 2020 and rapidly decline to avoid dangerous climate change.
Myllyvirta said the greatest significance of the current drop in coal use was that economic growth had continued at 7.4 per cent at the same time, although that is a lower rate than in recent years. "The Chinese economy is divorcing coal," he said.
Ninety-two leading banks last year provided at least EUR 66 billion in financing to the coal industry, according to new coal financing data released today in BankTrack's ‘Banking on coal 2014' report. [1] This, believes the global campaigning network, represents a highly regrettable ‘record year' for financial support extended to the top 65 coal companies in both the coal mining and power sectors.http://www.banktrack.org/show/news/_record_year_for_bank_coal_financing_as_latest_un_climate_warning_looms (http://www.banktrack.org/show/news/_record_year_for_bank_coal_financing_as_latest_un_climate_warning_looms)
Released just days ahead of the publication of the fifth United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report, the EUR 66 billion figure represents a more than fourfold rise in climate-busting coal financing when compared to 2005, according to BankTrack's research.
Analysing what is now one of the primary forms of life support for a global coal industry in crisis, the new report also reveals that leading banks have provided 373 billion euros (500 billion dollars) in financing for the coal industry between 2005 and April 2014. The top 20 financiers, including JPMorgan Chase, Citi and RBS in the top three, have alone provided 73% of this amount. [2]
The new BankTrack research accompanies the launch of the ‘Banks: Quit Coal' campaign that aims to pressure commercial banks to cut their ties with the coal industry and instead divert capital to clean energy and energy efficiency. A new ‘Coal banks' website, also launched today, provides extensive data about the banking industry's ongoing deep links with the coal industry, and gives people around the world an opportunity to directly encourage banks to finally end their coal financing. [3]
Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., all of the U.S., also have joined a roster of international lenders worried about Abbot Point’s environmental impact. Britain's Barclays PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland PLC also have said they were unwilling to get involved. Deutsche Bank AG in May said it wouldn’t offer funding for Abbot Point after the U.N. condemned a government plan, since reversed, to allow mud and rock dredged from the sea floor during an expansion to be dumped in waters near the reefhttp://m.wsj.com/articles/morgan-stanley-to-advise-on-stake-sale-of-disputed-coal-port-1414412910 (http://m.wsj.com/articles/morgan-stanley-to-advise-on-stake-sale-of-disputed-coal-port-1414412910)
Denmark is looking into how the country can stop using coal as an energy supply by 2025, the Climate and Energy Minister Rasmus Helveg Petersen said on Wednesday (29 October). The Scandinavian country's centre-left government had previously aimed at being coal-independent by 2030.The problem: how to do this without increasing importation of German energy from coal.
New analysis from Deutsche Bank notes the precarious nature of the coal industry even in the world’s most voracious consumer. It notes that even in China, coal is on a downward trend, and it has written down the value of some coal companies in China by an astonishing 92 per cent.
...
It shows that coal imports into China fell by half in November, and nearly that much in October.
Deutsche Bank expects that could continue for all of 2015, as the government seeks to rebalance domestic supply and demand. “There is no defying the fall,” it notes.
China coal consumption may not rise at all over calendar 2015, and new domestic projects may not be encouraged. To address the plunging cost of coal, the government is likely to focus its measures on restricting imports, with a cut in half the most likely outcome in most of the scenarios mapped by Deutsche Bank.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/china-slashes-coal-imports-coal-generation-slumps-47396 (http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/china-slashes-coal-imports-coal-generation-slumps-47396)
QuoteTo address the plunging cost of coal, the government is likely to focus its measures on restricting imports, with a cut in half the most likely outcome in most of the scenarios mapped by Deutsche Bank.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/china-slashes-coal-imports-coal-generation-slumps-47396 (http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/china-slashes-coal-imports-coal-generation-slumps-47396)
This puts the Australian government in a bind. They've bet their economy on exporting coal to China.
Australia continues to frustrate efforts by fellow G20 members to include climate change on the agenda at the upcoming leaders' summit in the eastern city of Brisbane this weekend.http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/11/coal-versus-climate-australia-2014111012491252509.html (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/11/coal-versus-climate-australia-2014111012491252509.html)
...
Campbell Newman, premier of Queensland state, put the political equation bluntly in June, saying: "We are in the coal business. If you want decent hospitals, schools and police on the beat, we all need to understand that."
...
"Australia's politicians should take a deep breath and look for other options," said Tom Sanzillo, director of finance at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "Realistically, there will be no recovery of coal prices in the foreseeable future, and a response other than one that produces more of something that's not profitable is required."
The wolves drag down the weakest first
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141113/GZ01/141119629 (http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141113/GZ01/141119629)
http://www.wvgazette.com/assets/PDF/CH62291113.pdf (http://www.wvgazette.com/assets/PDF/CH62291113.pdf)
Hey, Don, thought you were in the predator class ? I guess they cut you loose ... so sad.
sidd
India’s Energy Minister Piyush Goyal, who is in Australia for the G20 meet, recently announced that India plans to completely stop coal imports within a period of 2 to 3 years.Because India's domestic coal is so much cheaper. But still, it's another nail in the coffin for Australia coal exports. And, I imagine, a boost for renewables, when India's domestic coal production continues to fail to hit targets.
Coal Rush in India Could Tip Balance on Climate Change
DHANBAD, India — Decades of strip mining have left this town in the heart of India’s coal fields a fiery moonscape, with mountains of black slag, sulfurous air and sickened residents.
But rather than reclaim these hills or rethink their exploitation, the government is digging deeper in a coal rush that could push the world into irreversible climate change and make India’s cities, already among the world’s most polluted, even more unlivable, scientists say.
“If India goes deeper and deeper into coal, we’re all doomed,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and one of the world’s top climate scientists. “And no place will suffer more than India.”
India’s coal mining plans may represent the biggest obstacle to a global climate pact to be negotiated at a conference in Paris next year. While the United States and China announced a landmark agreement that includes new targets for carbon emissions, and Europe has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, India, the world’s third-largest emitter, has shown no appetite for such a pledge.
...
Mr. Goyal has promised to double India’s use of domestic coal from 565 million tons last year to more than a billion tons by 2019, and he is trying to sell coal-mining licenses as swiftly as possible after years of delay. The government has signaled that it may denationalize commercial coal mining to accelerate extraction.
...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also vowed to build a vast array of solar power stations, and projects are already springing up in India’s sun-scorched west.
But India’s coal rush could push the world past the brink of irreversible climate change, with India among the worst affected, scientists say.
One reason for the widespread domestic support for India’s coal rush is the lack of awareness of just how bad the air has already become, scientists say. Smog levels that would lead to highway shutdowns and near-panic in Beijing go largely unnoticed in Delhi. Pediatric respiratory clinics are overrun, but parents largely shrug when asked about the cause of their children’s suffering. Face masks and air purifiers, ubiquitous among China’s elite, are rare here. And there are signs Indian air is rapidly worsening.
“People need to wake up to just how awful the air already is,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading intergovernmental organization for the assessment of climate change.
I think you sell Indian citizens short. Many (I'd guess most) are very aware of how bad their air is and the dangers of climate change. But life is still difficult for most people living in India. When one is concerned with feeding their family today it's hard to put much energy into worrying about your health 10, 20 years from now or how climate changes will impact your grandchildren and their grandchildren.
The Chinese government announced Wednesday it would cap coal use by 2020. The Chinese State Council, or cabinet, said the peak would be 4.2 billion tonnes, a one-sixth increase over current consumption.
This is a staggering reversal of Chinese energy policy, which for two decades has been centered around building a coal plant or more a week. Now they’ll be building the equivalent in carbon-free power every week for decades, while the construction rate of new coal plants decelerates like a crash-test dummy.
The 2020 coal peak utterly refutes the GOP claim that China’s recent climate pledge “requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years.” Indeed, independent analyses make clear a 2020 coal peak announcement was the inevitable outcome of China’s game-changing climate deal deal with the U.S. last week, where China agreed to peak its total carbon pollution emissions in 2030 — or earlier.
Germany aims to shut down eight additional coal plants.Sigmetnow - not so fast please. Remember last weeks news
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL6N0TD0EG20141123?irpc=932 (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL6N0TD0EG20141123?irpc=932)
Citigroup says the impact of the China-US climate deal signed earlier this month could total $US3.9 trillion ($A4.5 trillion) – that’s the loss in revenue for Big Oil and Big Coal over the next 15 years from the joint undertaking on greenhouse gas emissions by the world’s two biggest economies.
Citi’s global commodities team say the most tangible impact of the US-China climate deal will be a $US1.3 trillion revenue hit for Big Oil between now and 2030, and a $US1.6 trillion hit against Big Coal.
That is the loss in revenue compared with commonly used baseline assumptions, just for those countries – as oil demand growth rates slow as engines become more efficient and many go for electric vehicles, and renewable are used in place of coal.
But the impact could be greater if the world moves towards an agreement in Paris next year that sets it on a path to limit average global warming to 2C.
France will eliminate export credits for energy projects in developing countries which involve coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, President Francois Hollande said on Thursday.
The European Union is phasing out subsidies for domestic coal plants by 2018 in line with its efforts to take a global lead in the fight against climate change.
But an EU policy paper seen by Reuters in June said European makers of coal-fired power plants such as France's Alstom should get financial help to export the equipment, flying in the face of environmental opposition to any form of subsidy for coal.
"Eventually, subsidies to all fossil fuels should be phased out," Hollande said at France's annual environmental conference. "We are eliminating all export credits in the support that we give to developing countries whenever coal is used."
The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday rejected parts of a key Texas clean-air plan, setting up a conflict with deep implications both for the state’s electricity mix and air quality across much of the country.http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/11/epa-rejects-a-texas-clean-air-plan-orders-pollution-upgrades-on-some-big-coal-plants.html/ (http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/11/epa-rejects-a-texas-clean-air-plan-orders-pollution-upgrades-on-some-big-coal-plants.html/)
The partial rejection of Texas’ regional haze plan, a federally required strategy for reducing pollution that causes hazy skies, would require 15 coal-burning generating units at eight Texas power plants to install or improve controls that limit emissions of sulfur dioxide.
BERLIN, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Germany's cabinet will on Wednesday agree plans to cut CO2 emissions by up to 78 million tonnes by 2020, pushing operators to shut some coal-fired plants, to help Europe's biggest economy meet ambitious targets to fight climate change.http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL6N0TM2W720141202 (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL6N0TM2W720141202)
...
The most contested step in the package will be compelling operators of coal plants to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 22 million tonnes, equivalent to shutting about eight coal plants.
Contaminated waste from a retired coal plant in Rowan County, North Carolina, has been found leaking into a tributary of the second largest river in the state, environmental groups charged on Thursday.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/05/3600131/thick-orange-gooey-stuff/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/05/3600131/thick-orange-gooey-stuff/)
The groups Waterkeeper Alliance, Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Yadkin Riverkeeper said they discovered extensive leaks of coal ash coming from Duke Energy’s Buck Power Plant flowing into High Rock Lake, a tributary of the Yadkin River. Though the power plant no longer actively burns coal, it is surrounded by ponds filled with more than six million tons of coal ash — a waste byproduct from coal-burning.
Pete Harrison, an attorney representing the groups, told ThinkProgress that the seep was initially discovered in mid-November, after reports of a quarter-mile long area of orange-colored streaks along the river bank. The groups took samples of the seep, and found that it contained high levels of pollutants such as arsenic, lead, and selenium, the groups said in a press release. Coal ash usually contains similar chemicals.
The upshot: Coal exports, which more than doubled from 2007 to 2012, are expected to fall by nearly one-fifth this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says. In 2015, the number of tons exported could hit its lowest level in five years.http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/war-coal-epa-pollution-113550.html (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/war-coal-epa-pollution-113550.html)
Global coal use is on an upwards march despite calls to halt fossil fuels demand at a UN climate summit in Peru and will hit a record 9bn tonnes by 2019, according to the International Energy Agency.
QuoteGlobal coal use is on an upwards march despite calls to halt fossil fuels demand at a UN climate summit in Peru and will hit a record 9bn tonnes by 2019, according to the International Energy Agency.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/15/coal-demand-set-to-break-9bn-tonne-barrier-this-decade (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/15/coal-demand-set-to-break-9bn-tonne-barrier-this-decade)
The newly elected India government of Narendra Modi has announced a suite of initiatives for solar energy across the country that will be partly funded by a doubling of the tax on coal.
Modi – a long time supporter of solar – has promised a “saffron” revolution that will include ambitious targets for small, large and off-grid solar and a switch away from an assumed reliance on coal as the country seeks to deliver on its momentous task of bringing electricity to the entire country.
In its first budget announced this week, Modi’s government announced funding for a series of “ultra mega” solar PV farms to be located in four Indian deserts, in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
The government also launched a scheme for 100,000 solar power driven agricultural pump sets and water pumping stations in off grid areas.
It has also announced plans to dramatically extend a plan to cover canals with a series of 1MW solar farms, using availabl space to generate electricity and to reduce evaporation.
And it has also announced tax cuts and excise exemptions for arrange of solar components and machinery to help reduce the cost of domestic manufacturing of solar PV cells and modules.
Global coal demand growth will slow in the five years through 2019 as China, the world’s biggest consumer of the fuel, takes steps to cut energy intensity and diversify supply, according to the International Energy Agency.
Coal use will increase by 2.1 percent a year through 2019 to 6.5 billion metric tons of coal equivalent, less than the 2.3 percent growth predicted last year for the five years through 2018, the Paris-based agency said in its Medium-Term Coal Market Report.
In 2012 - IEA - coal consumption will rise 2013 to 2019 at 2.6% per year.
Then, the year before -
"A report released recently by the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that under current polices, primary world energy demand will grow 51% between 2009 and 2035, with global demand for coal increasing by as much as 65%."
Last week, Modi made a move toward ending shortages, winning partial passage of a bill that will allow him to end a 40-year government coal monopoly. The plan is to bring in more efficient private companies. The coal unions say that will mean job losses, and that they will fight the legislation.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-16/india-s-modi-gets-his-maggie-thatcher-moment-with-coal-unions.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-16/india-s-modi-gets-his-maggie-thatcher-moment-with-coal-unions.html)
Low gas prices are “eventually going to provide some sort of floor” by prompting power generators to switch from burning coal, said Calder. “This withdrawal shows that it’s going to be a while coming. In the meantime, we are going to see bears take over this market.”http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-26/natural-gas-futures-drop-below-3-for-first-time-since-2012.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-26/natural-gas-futures-drop-below-3-for-first-time-since-2012.html)
In what is being described as a fundamental shift in how the coal industry does business, over 40 percent of all coal produced in Wyoming is now being first sold not to a power plant or a utility, but to a subsidiary of the same company that mined the coal — a 17-fold increase since 2004 for the U.S.’s largest coal-producing state.
According to a new report by the Center for American Progress, these inside deals between coal companies and their own subsidiaries (known as “captive transactions”) are aimed, in part, at intentionally dodging federal and state royalty payments and maximizing taxpayer-funded subsidies from the U.S. Department of the Interior....
The U.S. coal export industry continued its losing streak as 2014 ended and 2015 began. A coal terminal project in Louisiana lost its permit in state court, and one in Washington ran into a stiff legal challenge. Last month, the company behind several other planned terminals sold its remaining projects to a high-risk investment firm at a major loss.http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20150112/losing-streak-continues-us-coal-export-terminals (http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20150112/losing-streak-continues-us-coal-export-terminals)
The developments continue a string of victories for environment groups fighting the export of coal to developing economies such as China. Of 15 proposals to build major new coal export facilities across the U.S., all but four have been defeated or canceled within the past two years. And only a few existing facilities have won approval to expand.
“According to India’s own energy minister, the country is likely to stop importing coal within two years,” Palese said. “We have to ask what happens to these mega coal mines and ports as coal demand drops and renewables’ competitiveness rises. It is completely unconscionable to dredge the Reef and destroy our climate for a massive new coal project that may well end up as a stranded asset.”http://350.org.au/blog/350-org-calls-for-moratorium-on-abbot-point-coal-port-expansion-in-light-of-adani-gate-findings/ (http://350.org.au/blog/350-org-calls-for-moratorium-on-abbot-point-coal-port-expansion-in-light-of-adani-gate-findings/)
Coal prices in the United States have reached a six-year low and could fall further in 2015. The situation is little better internationally, where Australian coal prices fell more than 8% between July and December 2014 and European coal prices fell by nearly 4.4% in the same period. Forecasts for 2015 indicate Australian coal could lose nearly 9% more and European coal could drop as much as 25%.
There are two reasons for fix that the industry finds itself in today: lower demand from China and a stronger U.S. dollar. China imposed restrictions on coal imports last year and foreign supplies fell by 11%. Demand from the Middle Kingdom is expected to slide another 9% in 2015.
The stronger dollar helps producers from Russia to South Africa to Australia. Russia, where the ruble has sunk to the bottom of Lake Baikal, is expected produce as much coal as it can this year in an effort to drive higher-priced producers out of the market. Australia will adopt a similar policy. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it is essentially the same strategy that Saudi Arabia has adopted and forced on its fellow OPEC members to maintain oil market share as crude prices drop.
...
The lift some U.S. producers got from exports to China is disappearing and exports to other countries are hurt by the strength of the dollar. In domestic sales, coal prices are being challenged by continuing low prices for natural gas and increasing requirements for emissions reductions at coal-fired electricity generating plants.
Duke Energy is facing multiple criminal charges for years of dumping coal waste into North Carolina’s rivers.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/23/3625717/duke-energy-coal-ash-charges/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/23/3625717/duke-energy-coal-ash-charges/)
Federal prosecutors charged Duke with nine counts of misdemeanors under the Clean Water Act late Friday, saying that the energy company had been dumping coal ash from power plants in five North Carolina locations since at least 2010. Duke isn’t challenging the case — instead, it has already worked out a proposed plea bargain with the federal government. If approved, the bargain would require the company to pay a total of $102.2 million — $68.2 million in fines and restitution and $34 million for community service and projects to help mitigate the effects of the pollution.
The German capital of Berlin will shut its four remaining coal-fired power plants by 2020, according to provisional results from a parliamentary inquiry committee on the city’s future energy supply, Die Welt reports.http://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/media-city-berlin-exit-coal-2020 (http://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/media-city-berlin-exit-coal-2020)
WSJ and now a few other sources are claiming that China's total coal consumption actually fell last year (didn't just grow at a slower rate) by 2.9%.This is indeed great news. Even if China fudged the numbers a bit to pacify everyone (after all, they insisted on calling their choking air "fog" instead of "smog" for years) -- it verifies they are now clued in about the importance of the carbon face they show the world. Not insisting they must still grow at any cost.
Chinese coal plants have been running fewer hours, however, suggesting capacity is being added but not used. Coal overcapacity will lead to losses for all coal plant and will, ultimately, mean closure for older stations, according to Greenpeace.
The linked article discusses the complications associated with the US EPA's efforts to promote the use of CCS to develop "clean coal" in the USA:
http://www.bna.com/mccarthy-defends-viability-n17179923414/ (http://www.bna.com/mccarthy-defends-viability-n17179923414/)
Dropping the carbon capture component of the proposed rule could help insulate the final rule from some legal challenges....
I’m quite confident they’re looking seriously at whether they’re going forward with CCS and whether they want to take on vulnerability,” Holmstead said.
A YouGov survey for Greenpeace shows that the majority of people (56%) support the phasing out of coal fired power stations in the early 2020s as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions, more than double the proportion (24%) who oppose such a move.
...
The Government's climate advisers have said there is no role for conventional coal power generation beyond the early 2020s if the UK is to meet its long term goals to cut emissions in the most cost-effective way.
In its latest effort to slash costs as commodity prices fall, Rio Tinto is letting go its energy chief and rolling its coal and uranium businesses into two other units, a move that could signal its intention to divest its coal assets.http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/02/27/business/27reuters-rio-tinto-costs.html (http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/02/27/business/27reuters-rio-tinto-costs.html)
The reason it’s doing this, FPL has said, is simple: the plant is outdated, and shutting it down will save customers money — $70 million a year to be exact, according to the utility.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/12/3632518/florida-coal-plant-shutdown/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/12/3632518/florida-coal-plant-shutdown/)
The global coal boom has started to slow, a new report says, as more plans for new power plants are now being shelved than completed.http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/03/more-coal-plants-are-being-cancelled-than-built/ (http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/03/more-coal-plants-are-being-cancelled-than-built/)
The number of cancelled coal projects across the world has outstripped those completed at a rate of two to one since 2010, according to Sierra Club and CoalSwarm - two campaign groups that have tracked the progress of 3,900 intended plants since 1 January 2010.
...
The highest proportion of coal projects were canned in Europe, where the failure rate was 7:1.
The lowest was in east Asia, where only one project failed for every success. And the majority of these were in China, where around 228 gigawatts were added between 2010 and 2014, compared to 119 gigawatts cancelled.
However, in terms of tonnes of carbon dioxide avoided, the cancellations in east Asia were more than double that of Europe, due to the sheer scale of projects being proposed in the first place.
In India, the story is of a particularly rapid slowdown in the rate at which proposed coal plants are being constructed.
From the beginning of 2010 to mid-2012, the ratio of plants halted to plants completed was nearly 2:1. From mid-2012 to mid-2014, this increased to more than 6:1. The report puts this down to a variety of factors, among them the "Coalgate" scandal concerning the corrupt allocation of coal mining rights between 2004-9.
“We’ve known for decades that coal posed serious health and environmental risks, but now coal has also become an investment risk as countries take serious actions to clear their air and protect the climate,” said Andrew Logan, director of the oil and gas program at Ceres, a non-profit sustainability organization.http://www.carbontracker.org/in-the-media/us-coal-crash-serves-as-a-warning-to-investors-betting-on-carbon/ (http://www.carbontracker.org/in-the-media/us-coal-crash-serves-as-a-warning-to-investors-betting-on-carbon/)
“Investors have been pushing for coal and other fossil fuel companies to face facts and adapt their business models to thrive in a carbon-constrained world.”
The financial think-tank says the fate of US coal should serve as a warning to investors in other fossil fuel markets worldwide who fail to prudently read a structural shift away from hydrocarbons and blindly continue to invest in assets that are in increasingly in danger of becoming stranded. Earlier this month the International Energy Agency said that for the first time in 40 years CO2 emissions had stalled in 2014, a development that was not tied to a downturn in economic growth. It attributed the fall to changing patterns of energy consumption in China and OECD countries with the use of renewables and greater energy efficiency measures cited as contributing factors.
“The roof has fallen in on U.S. coal, and alarm bells should be ringing for investors in related sectors around the world,” said Andrew Grant, Carbon Tracker’s financial analyst and report co-author. “These first tremors are amongst the clearest signs yet of a seismic shift in energy markets, as high carbon fuels are set to be increasingly outperformed by lower carbon alternatives.
...
The industry’s plan B, to export production to assumed perennial growth markets in Asia, has also floundered amid a global market awash with supply from other countries and weak demand; Chinese coal consumption fell nearly 3% in 2014 while India, the world’s third largest buyer, says it may stop imports of thermal coal in the next three years With domestic markets collapsing and no lifeline from abroad, 264 US mines were closed between 2011 and 2013.
The US coal sector is in a “structural decline” which has sent 26 companies bust in the last three years, according to financial analysts.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/24/us-coal-sector-in-terminal-decline-financial-analysts-say (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/24/us-coal-sector-in-terminal-decline-financial-analysts-say)
A report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative found that in the past five years the US coal industry lost 76% of its value. At least 264 mines were closed between 2011 and 2013. The world’s largest private coal company, Peabody Energy, lost 80% of its share price.
These declines were in spite of the Dow Jones industrial average increasing by 69% during the same period. Authors said this indicated a decoupling of US economic growth from coal.
Duke Energy has agreed to a $2.5 million settlement with Virginia over a massive coal ash spill that coated 70 miles of the Dan River in gray sludge, state environmental officials announced Friday.http://bigstory.ap.org/article/74d1040846bf45e6b28baa82a302d352/duke-virginia-agree-25-million-coal-ash-settlement (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/74d1040846bf45e6b28baa82a302d352/duke-virginia-agree-25-million-coal-ash-settlement)
The settlement drew immediate criticism from a water protection group, while the hardest-hit locality — the city of Danville — continues to negotiate with Duke.
The Sierra Club announced a new goal alongside the funding: Close half the nation's coal-fired power fleet by 2025. The group is seeking to secure commitments for those coal-plant retirements by the end of 2017.
That replaces the "Beyond Coal" campaign's prior goal of shutting down one-third of the nation's coal-fired power generation by 2020.
Barclays has ended its financing of a controversial coal mining method known as mountaintop removal and said time is running out for the practicehttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/07/barclays-ends-financing-of-controversial-mountaintop-removal-mining (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/07/barclays-ends-financing-of-controversial-mountaintop-removal-mining)
America’s oldest coal plants are retiring like they’re Baby Boomers, and some of them are the same age. About 17 percent of U.S. coal-fired power generation will vanish in the next few years — some 7.5 percent this year alone, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Obstacles facing coal plants include their age, the abundance of cheap natural gas and a new EPA rule that begins taking effect April 16.http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-coal-plants/ (http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-coal-plants/)
About 13 gigawatts of coal-fired generating capacity, more than 4 percent of the nation's 300 or so gigawatts of coal, is expected to retire this year. New wind plants will add 10 gigawatts. Solar will add 2 gigawatts more. Gas will provide another 6 gigawatts.
Beyond Coal is the most extensive, expensive and effective campaign in the Club’s 123-year history, and maybe the history of the environmental movement. It’s gone largely unnoticed amid the furor over the Keystone pipeline and President Barack Obama’s efforts to regulate carbon, but it’s helped retire more than one third of America’s coal plants since its launch in 2010, one dull hearing at a time. With a vast war chest donated by Michael Bloomberg, unlikely allies from the business world, and a strategy that relies more on economics than ecology, its team of nearly 200 litigators and organizers has won battles in the Midwestern and Appalachian coal belts, in the reddest of red states, in almost every state that burns coal.
The full extent of government financing for coal overseas is not common knowledge, and it is revealed here for the first time. A very large amount of public financing has been flowing to coal projects around the world. Our analysis finds that public finance has played a significant role in supporting coal projects over the last 8 years. Between 2007 and 2014, more than US $73 billion – or over $9 billion a year – in public finance was approved for coal.http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2015/05/Under_The_Rug_NRDC_OCI_WWF_Jun_2015.pdf (http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2015/05/Under_The_Rug_NRDC_OCI_WWF_Jun_2015.pdf)
This funding is being provided by a handful of countries that continue to resist pressure to end this public financing. Japan provided the largest amount of coal financing of any country, with over $20 billion of finance from 2007 to 2014. In the OECD, Korea and Germany were the next largest sources of funding for coal.... Japan, Korea and Australia are leading the opposition to limits on coal finance in international discussions.
@jackcushmanjr: Peabody, under severe financial pressure, will cut corporate HQ and regional staff to save $40+ million per year. http://t.co/fHBM86VZi9 (http://t.co/fHBM86VZi9)http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/peabody-energy-announces-leaner-corporate-structure-with-planned-reduction-of-approximately-250-salaried-positions-300095554.html (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/peabody-energy-announces-leaner-corporate-structure-with-planned-reduction-of-approximately-250-salaried-positions-300095554.html)
Reuters reported last week that St. Louis-based Peabody Energy is “under scrutiny” from the federal government over concerns that the company is violating federal bonding regulations that are intended to guarantee that if a mining company goes bankrupt, it has sufficient insurance to pay to clean up its own mines. Instead of paying a third party for cleanup insurance, Peabody Energy has sought to comply with federal and state rules by promising regulators that it has sufficient financial resources on hand to pay for any cleanup costs — a practice known as self-bonding.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/08/3667061/coal-cleanup-insurance/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/08/3667061/coal-cleanup-insurance/)
A review of securities filings by Reuters, however, found that at the end of 2014, Peabody’s assets were insufficient to meet federal and state self-bonding requirements. According to Reuters, “slumping coal prices and declining demand have put [coal] industry balance sheets under stress,” raising serious questions about whether Peabody and its competitors can continue to insure their own operations. In 2014, Peabody posted more than $700 million in losses.
The EPA is expected to finalize its carbon dioxide regulations later this summer, and many lawmakers have expressed concern and frustration that the rules will burden Kentucky ratepayers. Electricity rates in Kentucky may inevitably rise as coal plants retire, but that’s not directly related to the carbon dioxide rules. Regulators expect that Kentucky won’t have to do very much to comply with the EPA’s upcoming greenhouse gas regulations, because so many plants are going offline anyway.http://wfpl.org/forget-greenhouse-gas-rules-nearly-60-percent-kentuckys-coal-plants-may-gone-2040/ (http://wfpl.org/forget-greenhouse-gas-rules-nearly-60-percent-kentuckys-coal-plants-may-gone-2040/)
New coal-fired power plants are unlikely to be built, because EPA rules finalized last year put limits on the greenhouse gas emissions those plants can emit. The EPA’s limit would mean that any new coal plant would need to incorporate some type of carbon capture technology; this may not be a deal breaker in the future, but right now, carbon capture equipment is prohibitively expensive.
Peters also told the committee that Kentucky’s demand for electricity has nearly flattened. That’s partly because one of the state’s major electricity users—the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant—has shut down. Increased energy efficiency has played a role, too. All of these factors mean that not all of the retiring coal units will have to be replaced to power the state.
Exactly, but if we wait till the earth has gone to hell, it will be a bit late for regulations.
And cheaper electricity is not necessarily a good thing
And further, since we now know that the real 'cost' of these pollutants is the very viability of the planet, we have to now regulate them out of existence, as we would for any other existential threat.
"Think about banking regulations.....they happened AFTER everything went to hell."
Exactly, but if we wait till the earth has gone to hell, it will be a bit late for regulations.
The Department of Energy has suspended Recovery Act funding for a California project to trap carbon emissions from a coal-fired power plant, an agency spokeswoman said.http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060021604 (http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060021604)
DOE had set aside $408 million for Hydrogen Energy California LLC's effort to produce power from coal and petroleum coke, trap most of its CO2 emissions, and use the carbon for making fertilizer and stimulating oil wells. Of the total, $275 million was American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars.
But DOE says HECA has not met certain benchmarks. The company has, for example, recently said it failed to secure customers for the enhanced oil recovery portion of the project.
Alliant Energy, a major Iowa utility, has committed to phase out coal use at six of its plants in the state, marking the 200th coal plant to shut down in the United States. This marks a milestone in the country’s transition to clean energy and underscores Iowa’s growth as a clean energy state. The announced coal plant retirements are the result of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign advocacy, which has been a driving force in the national transition to renewable sources of power. The retirement of 200 coal plants nationwide represents the phase out of nearly 40 percent of the 523 U.S. coal plants that were in operation just five years ago.http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2015/07/united-states-phases-out-200th-coal-plant-momentum-renewable-energy-grows (http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2015/07/united-states-phases-out-200th-coal-plant-momentum-renewable-energy-grows)
Coal prices have crashed, and as a result coal giant Peabody Energy (BTU) is down almost 80% year-to-date, with other large coal stocks Consol Energy (CNX), Cloud Peak (CLD) and Alliance Resource Partners (ARLP) down about 40% to 50% since January.http://investorplace.com/2015/07/coal-stocks-btu-cnx-arlp-aci-anr/ (http://investorplace.com/2015/07/coal-stocks-btu-cnx-arlp-aci-anr/)
Smaller companies like Arch Coal (ACI) and Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) are both down 80%, too, though it’s worth noting they both trade for less than 30 cents and have market caps of less than $50 million so volatility and big risks can always be expected in stocks this size.
So will it ever get better for coal stocks?
The short answer: Not bloody likely.
Slumping coal market becomes a 'wild card' for investors (http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2015/07/21/stories/1060022127)from E&E Publishing Service's ClimateWire - subscription required
Natural gas made history by surpassing coal as the top U.S. electric energy source in April. Now the market damage begins to flow in through earnings reports.
In 2010, coal yielded 45 percent of U.S. electricity (ClimateWire, July 15). Now the country has moved into a different economic world where, in April, natural gas provided 31 percent of America's electricity, coal combustion generated 30 percent and nuclear stations contributed 20 percent of the nationwide mix, while renewables and others made up the difference.
Work on one of the world’s biggest coal projects has ground to a halt with the Indian coal giant Adani dissolving the project management team behind its controversial Carmichael mine in Queensland.http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/22/adani-dissolves-50-strong-project-team-from-troubled-165bn-carmichael-mine (http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/22/adani-dissolves-50-strong-project-team-from-troubled-165bn-carmichael-mine)
Tony Abbott is mistaken in claiming coal is “good for humanity”, with the fossil fuel causing numerous health problems and ineffective in delivering electricity to the world’s poor compared with renewables, a new Oxfam report has found.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/29/tony-abbott-wrong-on-coal-being-good-for-humanity-oxfam-report-shows (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/29/tony-abbott-wrong-on-coal-being-good-for-humanity-oxfam-report-shows)
The Powering Up Against Poverty study argues the Australian government’s continued embrace of coal exports is out of step with an international shift towards clean energy and would do little to help the one in seven of the world’s population who do not have electricity to light their homes or cook food.
...
“We are very concerned by this myopic focus on coal,” said Dr Simon Bradshaw, author of the Oxfam report. “Coal is the single biggest contributor to climate change, the impacts of which are most felt by poorer people through floods, drought, cyclones and changes to food patterns.
“We can clearly see in rural areas, and even rapidly growing urban populations, that renewable energy is a much more affordable and healthy solution for developing countries than coal.”
Decentralised energy systems, such as solar, can be deployed quicker and more cheaply than coal, when its cost to the climate and health are factored in, Oxfam said. Nearly 85% of people without electricity live in remote rural areas, separated from centralised coal-fired grid systems.
“Do I think coal is the solution to poverty? There are more than 1 billion people today who have no access to energy,” Kyte said. Hooking them up to a coal-fired grid would not on its own wreck the planet, she went on.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/29/world-bank-coal-cure-poverty-rejects (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/29/world-bank-coal-cure-poverty-rejects)
But Kyte added: “If they all had access to coal-fired power tomorrow their respiratory illness rates would go up, etc, etc … We need to extend access to energy to the poor and we need to do it the cleanest way possible because the social costs of coal are uncounted and damaging, just as the global emissions count is damaging as well.”
Turkey has very big plans for coal, with more than 80 new plants in the pipeline, equivalent in capacity to the UK’s entire power sector. The scale of the coal rush is greater than any country on Earth, after China and India.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/06/is-it-too-late-to-stop-turkeys-coal-rush (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/06/is-it-too-late-to-stop-turkeys-coal-rush)
The Commonwealth Bank's role as adviser to Australia's biggest coal project, Adani Mining's proposed Carmichael Mine in Queensland, has ended, dealing a heavy blow to its prospects and a significant victory for environmental groups.http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/adani-and-commonwealth-bank-part-ways-casting-further-doubt-on-carmichael-coal-project-20150805-gisd1l.html (http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/adani-and-commonwealth-bank-part-ways-casting-further-doubt-on-carmichael-coal-project-20150805-gisd1l.html)
It comes as environmentalists claimed a victory in their case against the project after the Federal Court overturned Adani's federal environmental approval. Environment Minister Greg Hunt was forced to concede defeat for not taking into account two threatened species – the yakka skink and ornamental snake – before he signed off on the project in 2014.
@billmckibben: More than 1000 people already on hand for this weekend's massive civil disobedience at huge German coal mine http://t.co/pPLtiZMRAT (http://t.co/pPLtiZMRAT)
Coal futures have fallen to 12-year lows, hit by soaring production and a slowdown in global buying, including from India and China which until recently have been pillars of strong demand.
Benchmark API2 2016 coal futures last settled at $US52.85 a tonne, a level not seen since November 2003. The contract is now over 75 per cent below its 2008 all-time peak and more than 60 per cent below its most recent high following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
...Yet at some point the low coal prices could also start to stimulate demand as it has made the fuel super-competitive against its main competitor, natural gas.
Reuters calculations show that the revenues from selling electricity generated from coal in Germany are around 20 euros per megawatt-hour higher than those produced from natural gas.
Emerging markets which have yet to provide blanket electricity to its households and need cheap energy to develop their industry also still mostly rely on coal as their main fuel as they prioritize low costs over environmental concerns.....
Conclusion of a Letter of Intent to Develop World's Most Advanced Coal-Fired Thermal Power Plants in Fukushima Prefecture...
The project aims to construct and operate two 540 MW class IGCC facilities in Fukushima: one at TEPCO's Hirono Thermal Power Station and the other at Joban Joint Power Company's Nakoso Thermal Power Station....
IGCC systems generate power using a combined-cycle format incorporating coal gasification and both gas and steam turbines. IGCC systems offer enhanced generation efficiency**, as well as reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of about 15% in comparison with the latest conventional coal fired power plant.
In that sense, 2015 became crucial for the Western Balkans too. Decisions made this year will lay ground for reshaping its energy system over the next several years.Pdf: http://www.caneurope.org/docman/position-papers-and-research/coal-2/2676-beyond-borders/file (http://www.caneurope.org/docman/position-papers-and-research/coal-2/2676-beyond-borders/file)
Heavy reliance on coal in the region should start declining thanks to the ongoing reform of the Energy Community Treaty, which aims at bringing about an integrated energy market between the EU on one side, and the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region on the other. The reform will partly be outlined at the Ministerial Council in Tirana in October and will continue through to 2017. It is expected that the Energy Efficiency Directive and further strengthening of the enforcement will be adopted, having major implications for regional and national energy planning.
Furthermore, accession countries are obliged to start tuning their energy sectors with the EU climate and environmental policies, if they want to enhance their prospects of becoming EU Member States in the next decade. Simultaneously, political leaders need to fight the so-called enlargement fatigue on both sides of the EU border.
To this end, the so-called Berlin process started last year with a high level conference hosted by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The process is aimed at reviving accession talks with the region and bringing about real change, through economic cooperation and the energy and transport connectivity agenda. It will continue in the coming years. At this year’s meeting, the Western Balkans’ leaders are expected to agree on a list of five priority energy infrastructure projects that will receive EU funding in 2016.
In Ohio, the Public Utilities Commission is considering a request from the Akron company FirstEnergy to have consumers cover the higher cost of electricity from three aging coal plants. (One of these just underwent a $1.8 billion pollution-control upgrade to comply with federal law.) The aim is to keep the plants open for another 15 years. Under this plan, FirstEnergy ratepayers could spend $3 billion more than necessary for electricity, according to the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, a state agency.http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-01/let-coal-die-a-natural-death (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-01/let-coal-die-a-natural-death)
The strategy is similar to one FirstEnergy followed in West Virginia, when it got state approval to sell a coal-fired plant to its regulated subsidiaries, so that when the price of coal power became uncompetitive, the subsidiaries could secure an officially sanctioned rate increase. Earlier this month, they asked for a 12.5 percent rate rise.
Australia’s biggest proposed project was dealt another blow this week, as the National Australia Bank ruled out funding, and key customer Korean electronics giant LG ruled itself out as a buyer.http://tcktcktck.org/2015/09/national-australia-bank-rules-out-funding-adanis-carmichael-mine/ (http://tcktcktck.org/2015/09/national-australia-bank-rules-out-funding-adanis-carmichael-mine/)
We are witnessing the end of an era. Coal is fast becoming the telegraph to renewable energy’s Internet. American coal stocks are undergoing the most precipitous decline in the history of the energy industry. In 2011, four mining companies — Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Cloud Peak Energy — supplied most of the nation’s coal and together were worth nearly $40 billion. In four years, their combined value has fallen by 98 percent.http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-end-of-coal-is-near-6483929.php (http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-end-of-coal-is-near-6483929.php)
The End of Coal is NearQuoteWe are witnessing the end of an era. Coal is fast becoming the telegraph to renewable energy’s Internet. American coal stocks are undergoing the most precipitous decline in the history of the energy industry. In 2011, four mining companies — Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Cloud Peak Energy — supplied most of the nation’s coal and together were worth nearly $40 billion. In four years, their combined value has fallen by 98 percent.http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-end-of-coal-is-near-6483929.php (http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-end-of-coal-is-near-6483929.php)
Economic deceleration, industry restructuring, and new energy and environmental policies have slowed the growth of coal consumption in China and are also driving more centralized and cleaner uses of coal. After nearly a decade of rapid growth, energy-based consumption of coal, which currently supplies two-thirds of China's overall energy use, grew only 1% to 2% in 2012 and 2013 and was essentially flat in 2014.http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=22972 (http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=22972)
Total energy consumption in China has slowed as its economic growth has eased and as the composition of gross domestic product (GDP) has shifted. In 2013, the service sector share (47%) of GDP surpassed the industry sector share (44%) for the first time in Chinese history. The service sector share increased to 48% in 2014, already exceeding the government's 47% goal for 2015. Policies to accelerate the development of service industries are likely to sustain the transition away from industry, especially heavy manufacturing. As heavy manufacturing becomes less prominent, growth in coal consumption is expected to weaken.
New preliminary data from the China Statistical Abstract 2015 (CSA2015) show an upward revision to China's historical coal consumption and production. Energy-content-based coal consumption from 2000 to 2013 is up to 14% higher than previously reported, while coal production is up to 7% higher. These revisions also affect China's total primary energy consumption and production, which are also higher than previously reported—up to 11% and 7% in some years, respectively, mainly because of the revisions to coal. In 2014, energy-content-based coal consumption was essentially flat, and production declined by 2.6%.
“The head of this enormous utility is thinking beyond the present,” Barnett said. “The air quality issues in China — and many other countries — have gotten more and more attention, and there is pressure on the utility to design a progression to a less polluting grid.”http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/18/3702583/nrel-and-state-grid-partner/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/18/3702583/nrel-and-state-grid-partner/)
That means decreasing China’s use of coal, and increasing its use of renewables. “They are planning massive deployments, especially of solar and wind,” Barnett said.
NREL’s agreement with State Grid focuses on three key areas, Barnett said: power system planning and operation support, energy systems integration, and market design. On the U.S. side, the research lab will have access to huge amounts of data as China changes how its electricity is produced, transmitted, and used.
China is the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, and a large portion comes from burning coal for electricity. For reference, an 8 percent reduction in coal use over the first four months of the year resulted in a nearly 5 percent drop in the country’s overall carbon emissions — equal to the total amount emitted in Great Britain over the same time period.
The sheer scale of the electricity grid in China offers unique opportunities, for deployment of green technologies and for research. One Chinese solar company predicts that China will install 17.8 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity this year. The United States just passed the 20 GW milestone for all installations.
European coal for 2016 dropped below $50 a metric ton for the first time amid slumping demand from China, the biggest consumer.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/coal-for-2016-declines-below-50-in-europe-as-glut-persists (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/coal-for-2016-declines-below-50-in-europe-as-glut-persists)
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Miners producing 80 percent of the best-quality U.S. coal are either for sale or in bankruptcy, George Dethlefsen, chief executive officer of Corsa Coal Corp., said on Sept. 18.
Twin Power Station Chimneys Demolished in Stylehttp://www.nbcnews.com/video/twin-power-station-chimneys-demolished-in-style-532867139508 (http://www.nbcnews.com/video/twin-power-station-chimneys-demolished-in-style-532867139508)
SAT, SEP 26
Two 495-foot chimneys at a disused power station near Edinburgh, Scotland, were brought crashing down by coordinated explosions.
Cheap gas has knocked coal off its feet, and the need to improve air quality and ever-lower renewables costs has kept coal down for the count,” Carbon Tracker researcher Luke Sussams said in a statement.http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-coal-mines-lowest-on-record-19483 (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-coal-mines-lowest-on-record-19483)
China lays off 100,000 coal workers
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/In-biggest-layoff-in-China-coal-company-axes-100000-workers/articleshow/49121748.cms (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/In-biggest-layoff-in-China-coal-company-axes-100000-workers/articleshow/49121748.cms)
BEIJING: A coal company announced the biggest layoff seen in China in recent years as it is set to relieve 100,000 workers accounting for 40% of its labour force.
Number of U.S. Coal Mines Falls to Lowest on RecordQuoteCheap gas has knocked coal off its feet, and the need to improve air quality and ever-lower renewables costs has kept coal down for the count,” Carbon Tracker researcher Luke Sussams said in a statement.http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-coal-mines-lowest-on-record-19483 (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-coal-mines-lowest-on-record-19483)
If you are referring to the above graphic, note that these are mine "starts" -- not total mines. But, regardless, I'm sure they are milking existing mines for all they can, and avoiding the expense of opening new ones.Number of U.S. Coal Mines Falls to Lowest on RecordQuoteCheap gas has knocked coal off its feet, and the need to improve air quality and ever-lower renewables costs has kept coal down for the count,” Carbon Tracker researcher Luke Sussams said in a statement.http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-coal-mines-lowest-on-record-19483 (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-coal-mines-lowest-on-record-19483)
Curious that when comparing 2013 with 2011, there are fewer than half the number of mines, but production is only about 10% lower. Comparing 2013 with 2008, there are 1/3 as many mines but only 20% less production.
Glencore, like other mining companies, essentially built their business model around the notion we would never see economic instability in China and that China would continue to consume all the natural resources miners could dig from the ground and pay a premium,” Mr David said.
“This strategy was more of a leveraged gamble than anything else and it is not going to pay off.”
Glencore, with less than $US3 billion in cash and roughly $US30 billion of debt on its balance sheet has “always held very little cash on the sidelines relative to the size of its business operation for a rainy day”.
“Hence it has quickly become vulnerable to the economic downturn and quite frankly worthless if we continue to see the spot price of various commodities in the Glencore portfolio fall,” he said.
Glencore’s share price has fallen 43 per cent in the last month and 71 per cent since the start of the year.
Should the company suffer a Lehman-style collapse, the knock-on effect would be significant as access to credit would dry up for the miners who have little liquidity, he argues. “On the back of this you would have a lot of mining operations around the world for sale — and no buyers.
“This is precisely what happened to the housing market in the US during the GFC. Essentially it could kill the junk bond market, thus making the international investment and wholesale lending community very jittery about lending to other sectors of the global economy already over-leveraged.”
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/could-glencore-trigger-the-next-gfc/story-fnkgdg1h-1227550915667 (http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/could-glencore-trigger-the-next-gfc/story-fnkgdg1h-1227550915667)
Sullivan also hinted that higher U.S. interest rates could eventually force unhealthy businesses to go bust. In every industry, there are companies that shouldn't be operating but because interest rates are zero, they can get access to money that keeps them afloat, he explained.Traders start pricing Glencore bonds like junk
"Cheap money has fueled companies for so many years, so to an extent we've been living in cuckoo land. But all this money has not had the desired effect. At some point, we have to let companies go bust so the good companies can actually do well."
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/28/glencore-may-spark-a-lehman-moment-for-miners.html (http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/28/glencore-may-spark-a-lehman-moment-for-miners.html)
Half of the world’s coal isn’t worth digging out of the ground at current prices, according to Moody’s Investors Service.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/half-of-the-world-s-coal-output-is-uneconomical-moody-s-says (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/half-of-the-world-s-coal-output-is-uneconomical-moody-s-says)
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China’s slowing appetite for the power-plant fuel and steelmaking component has depressed the seaborne market, creating a worldwide glut. In the U.S., cheap natural gas is stealing coal’s share of the power generation market. And the strong dollar has tempered exports.
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Over the next six to 12 months there’s very little relief in sight,” Brandon Blossman, an analyst at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said by phone Thursday. “You have to right-size the production stack to the demand level. That’s the only way out.”
Citigroup on Monday became the third banking giant this year to slash its lending to coal-mining companies.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/citigroup-coal-divest_5612beace4b0dd85030cd00a (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/citigroup-coal-divest_5612beace4b0dd85030cd00a)
The move, which follows similar pledges this year from Bank of America and Crédit Agricole, will make it more difficult for companies producing coal, a major source of pollution and contributor to climate change, to finance future projects.
“In that context the decision in Krakow gives hope,” the Liberal MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy told the Guardian. “All of Poland’s political parties are unanimous about protecting coal consumption so when, at local level, people start questioning its use for health reasons, it might become a game changer in the national debate.”http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/07/poland-krakow-ban-coal-use-anti-smog-law (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/07/poland-krakow-ban-coal-use-anti-smog-law)
Coal's Upside? Things Can't Get Much Worse After a Dire 2015
The federal government announced Thursday it had approved a proposal by Indian mining company Adani to build one of the world’s biggest coal mines in the northern state of Queensland.http://www.globalpost.com/article/6669486/2015/10/15/australia-just-approved-one-biggest-coal-mines-world (http://www.globalpost.com/article/6669486/2015/10/15/australia-just-approved-one-biggest-coal-mines-world)
The $12 billion Carmichael project involves an open-cut and underground mine covering an area five times the size of Sydney Harbor, making it the largest coal mine in Australia.
Up to 60 million metric tons of coal will be dug up and shipped out of Australia via the Great Barrier Reef every year if the project goes ahead.
On Tuesday, in front of a roomful of energy executives, the president of Appalachian Power declared that the war on coal was over, and coal had not emerged victorious.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/28/3716919/appalachian-power-coal-not-coming-back/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/28/3716919/appalachian-power-coal-not-coming-back/)
According to the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Charles Patton, president of Appalachian Power, told energy executives that coal consumption is likely to remain stagnant whether or not federal regulations like the Clean Power Plan are allowed to go forward. He also said that in the national debate about coal and climate change, the public has largely settled on the side of climate change.
“You just can’t go with new coal [plants] at this point in time,” Patton reportedly said. “It is just not economically feasible to do so.”
And here’s the rub: Australia, almost alone, is trying to keep us on a coal-fired track. Late last month – after two years of efforts led by President Obama and supported by activists and NGOs around the world – the US and Japan announced agreement on a plan to phase out coal-plant financing for credit export agencies.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/is-australia-the-last-country-standing-in-defence-of-coal (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/is-australia-the-last-country-standing-in-defence-of-coal)
Export credit agencies provide billions of dollars per year in subsidies for coal plants around the world, and until now Japan has been the worst – providing $20bn (A$28bn) in subsidies for its companies to build coal projects overseas over the past seven years. Yet after diplomatic pressure and a strong campaign in Japan and internationally, Japan has agreed to limit its support for coal plants overseas.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton outlines $30b proposal that would “invest in economic diversification and job creation” in Appalachia and other areas adversely affected by declining demand for coal and the rise of alternative energy sources.http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2015-11-12/clinton-30b-plan-reaches-out-to-hard-hit-coal-workers (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2015-11-12/clinton-30b-plan-reaches-out-to-hard-hit-coal-workers)
On Tuesday, representatives from 34 of the world’s developed and major emerging economies reached an agreement to phase out public financing that supports the construction of new coal power plants around the world. Member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced that starting in 2017, all OECD countries will immediately stop providing export credit support for new coal-fired power plants, except when the most efficient technology is used or in the poorest countries where there are no viable alternatives.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/18/3723664/oecd-coal-financing-agreement/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/18/3723664/oecd-coal-financing-agreement/)
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This move represents a significant step in limiting financing of new coal generation around the world. The agreement will end public financing for 85 percent of proposed coal-fired power plant projects seeking OECD export support, rendering more than 300 projects currently in the pipeline ineligible for credit. From 2007 to 2014, OECD countries provided over $40 billion in public financial resources for international coal projects, of which 77 percent went to coal-fired power plants. OECD export credit agencies contributed the majority of these resources — over $31 billion. During this time-frame, Japan and Korea — both members of the OECD who did not restrict coal financing before this agreement — were the number one and number three providers of public coal finance respectively.
Global Coal Consumption Heads for Biggest Decline in History
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-08/global-coal-consumption-headed-for-biggest-decline-in-history (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-08/global-coal-consumption-headed-for-biggest-decline-in-history)
Weakness in domestic coal shipments has been hurting stocks in the railroad space for quite some time now. Since coal is a key revenue-generating commodity for railroad operators, it is only natural that the decline in domestic coal shipments has spelt significant doom in the space. The struggle faced by the railroad operators is evident from the 26.9% year-to-date decline witnessed in the Dow Jones U.S. Railroads Index.http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/199937/coal-weakness-pulls-down-railroads (http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/199937/coal-weakness-pulls-down-railroads)
The golden age of coal in China seems to be over," the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday in its Medium-Term Market Report to 2020, adding that a "peak coal" demand scenario was now probable due to stagnating housing and infrastructure development.http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL3N1463SN20151218 (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL3N1463SN20151218)
Lower-than-expected power demand as the use of electricity drops in heavy industry will also contribute to the decline in coal consumption, the Paris-based group added.
Appalachia grasps for hope as coal loses its grip
Tombond,
It is not so easy in Germany. Nuclear is not only phased out because of political issues but much more because all german nuclear plants are old and many have not been upgraded properly. Before Fukushima there was a tremendous political pressure in Germany to give the operators the possibility for prolenged drift WITHOUT any upgrading and maintainance. The government took the chance to close these old plants. There have in fact been some serious accidents in the years before closing and in some cases it was an the edge to a catastrophy. (Krümmel and Brunsbüttel plant, complete failure of emergency power after emergency shut down).
Coal is highly subsidized in germany, and this is the case why german companys arebuilding and planing new coal plants. Only for burning 1000 Kg coal the operator gets 100 Euro from the government.
Pity they are phasing out non carbon nuclear power due to anti science political ideology they could have aimed for the same low electricity emissions as France of just 40g/kWh.Tombond, your wording "anti science political ideology" sounds to me like old fashioned manipulative language. This manipulation did not work and will not work here.
I am in the Hansen camp and reluctantly concede that nuclear is a needed transitional technology.It could be better to stay open for various pathways than to sit reluctantly in any camp. The transitional technology here is PV & wind & back-up with coal & gas just for practical reasons: If you would want to build a new load-following nuclear power plant in Germany it would take some decades to complete it and it most probably would never get operational. The time for nuclear is definitly over here. And soon also the time for continous coal will be over, since it just burns money.
...Now it is the time for renewables + load-following fossils until we learn to match our energy demands to the variable energy production. ...Don't forget energy storage. ;)
Used car batteries are tested for storage: http://www.gizmag.com/second-use-battery-storage-grid-connection/40290/ (http://www.gizmag.com/second-use-battery-storage-grid-connection/40290/)
Don't forget energy storage. ;)
Even France, which has the advantage of "dual use" for nuclear, is going to reduce nuclear in the near future.
I repeat 40g/kWh
Is that including clean-up and storage of radioactive materials, because France is having problems with that (costing way much more money than anticipated, and money often is a proxy for energy use).
China will stop approving new coal mines for the next three years and continue to trim production capacity as the world’s biggest energy consumer tries to shift away from the fuel as it grapples with pollution.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-30/china-to-suspend-new-coal-mine-approvals-amid-pollution-fight (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-30/china-to-suspend-new-coal-mine-approvals-amid-pollution-fight)
China will suspend the approval of new mines starting in 2016 and will cut coal’s share of its energy consumption to 62.6 percent next year, from 64.4 percent now, Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday, citing National Energy Administration head Nur Bekri. It’s the first time the government has suspended the approval of new coal mines, according to Deng Shun, an analyst with ICIS China.
...This is exactly the thinking behind the UN Green Climate Fund and other philanthropic efforts. Coal in developing countries will not be allowed to "die a natural death," to coin a phrase. And the Coal Age won't end because we ran out of coal.
Only the developed world has the wealth to get off coal. We need to do this within a decade. We probably also need to use some of that wealth to help 3rd world nations avoid increasing their consumption. Perhaps we can give them renewable wind and photovoltaic farms as Christmas presents. This is only part in jest as we need to do just that. The developed countries need to pay for renewable energy in the third world and not in the form of loans.
Significantly, China is still bringing online new coal capacity. Hart notes, “In 2014, China took hundreds of existing coal plants offline but also added around 39 gigawatts of new coal capacity.” Some of this is new, more efficient plants replacing older, less efficiency capacity. “Some local officials are overbuilding simply because they have the capital to do so, and that is creating a massive capacity bubble in China, driving down plant-utilization rates, as well as the generation of profits nationwide,” explains Hart. “The average utilization rate for China’s thermal-power generations was 54 percent in 2014 — the lowest rate since China first began its reform and opening process in the late 1970s.”http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/04/3727779/downward-spiral-chinese-coal/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/04/3727779/downward-spiral-chinese-coal/)
A November report from Greenpeace came to a similar conclusion: “Capacity utilization of the plants has been plummeting. China is now adding one idle coal-fired power plant per week.”
Mon Jan 11, 2016
Arch Coal files for bankruptcy, hit by mining downturn
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0UP0MR20160111 (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0UP0MR20160111)
Chinese coal use peaked back in 2013, as Climate Progress first reported in May. Since China was responsible for some 80 percent of the growth in global demand since 2000 — and since the United States and most of the industrialized world have also started cutting coal use — the key remaining question for the dirtiest fossil fuel was, “Will a handful of developing countries, particularly India, see enough growth in coal consumption to overcome that drop?”http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/14/3739164/global-coal-peak-2013/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/14/3739164/global-coal-peak-2013/)
Goldman Sachs, among others, says the answer is no. “Peak coal is coming sooner than expected,” Goldman told clients in a September research note. Goldman projects global demand for coal used in electricity generation will drop from a peak of 6.15 billion metric tons in 2013 to 5.98 billion in 2019 (the end of its forecast range).
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Unsurprisingly, China’s coal imports have totally collapsed. In 2015 they dropped a remarkable 30 percent, the biggest decline on record. Bloomberg quotes a director with China Coal Transport and Distribution Association saying, “China doesn’t need overseas coal supplies anymore as it already faces a big domestic oversupply.”
It’s not just China reducing coal imports. India’s Minister of Energy Piyush Goyal said last May, “We are confident that in the next year or two, we will be able to stop imports of thermal coal.” Indeed, a 2014 solar auction revealed “solar PV is cheaper for Indian users than the electricity price needed to pay for imports of coal from Australia” for new thermal coal-fired power plants.
And it’s not just China cutting domestic coal use — the rest of the world also slashed coal last year. Remarkably, all of this has happened before most major countries have even adopted a serious price for carbon that comes anywhere near approximating the harm to human health and well-being caused by burning fossil fuels, like coal.
“This is a major shift that helps modernize the federal coal program,” said Jayni Hein, policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity. “This planning process will disclose the environmental and social impacts of coal leasing, which are extensive.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/14/obama-administration-set-to-announce-moratorium-on-some-new-federal-coal-leases/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/14/obama-administration-set-to-announce-moratorium-on-some-new-federal-coal-leases/)
Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in an interview that the decision represented a fundamental shift in how the federal government had begun to operate, by curbing the supply of fossil fuels available for burning rather than just working to reduce overall demand. He noted that when Obama rejected the cross-border permit application to build the Keystone XL pipeline late last year, the president specifically said that part of his reasoning stemmed from the fact that governments have got to keep some of the world’s remaining fossil fuels locked in the ground.
Joe Romm: We Might Have Finally Seen Peak CoalQuoteChinese coal use peaked back in 2013, as Climate Progress first reported in May. Since China was responsible for some 80 percent of the growth in global demand since 2000 — and since the United States and most of the industrialized world have also started cutting coal use — the key remaining question for the dirtiest fossil fuel was, “Will a handful of developing countries, particularly India, see enough growth in coal consumption to overcome that drop?”http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/14/3739164/global-coal-peak-2013/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/14/3739164/global-coal-peak-2013/)
Goldman Sachs, among others, says the answer is no. “Peak coal is coming sooner than expected,” Goldman told clients in a September research note. Goldman projects global demand for coal used in electricity generation will drop from a peak of 6.15 billion metric tons in 2013 to 5.98 billion in 2019 (the end of its forecast range).
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Unsurprisingly, China’s coal imports have totally collapsed. In 2015 they dropped a remarkable 30 percent, the biggest decline on record. Bloomberg quotes a director with China Coal Transport and Distribution Association saying, “China doesn’t need overseas coal supplies anymore as it already faces a big domestic oversupply.”
It’s not just China reducing coal imports. India’s Minister of Energy Piyush Goyal said last May, “We are confident that in the next year or two, we will be able to stop imports of thermal coal.” Indeed, a 2014 solar auction revealed “solar PV is cheaper for Indian users than the electricity price needed to pay for imports of coal from Australia” for new thermal coal-fired power plants.
And it’s not just China cutting domestic coal use — the rest of the world also slashed coal last year. Remarkably, all of this has happened before most major countries have even adopted a serious price for carbon that comes anywhere near approximating the harm to human health and well-being caused by burning fossil fuels, like coal.
Looking forward 5 - 10 years......this will play out for oil, much like it is now playing out for coal. Natural gas will have a much longer life....but oil is in the "on deck circle" for getting "whacked".
And that is just one of the reasons that Saudi Arabia wants to start shedding their fossil fuel assets...starting with their refiners.
The Obama administration's announcement on Friday that it will suspend new coal leasing on federal lands and overhaul the program to better reflect environmental costs could be a turning point in climate policy. It is a concrete measure toward leaving fossil fuels in the ground, as the science demands.http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15012016/obama-administration-halts-new-coal-leases-gives-climate-policy-boost (http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15012016/obama-administration-halts-new-coal-leases-gives-climate-policy-boost)
But it was the invisible hand of the coal markets, not the inexorable thrust of the climate models, that ultimately drove the federal government to this point.
Coal companies have been going bankrupt, even a they have been granted access to a virtually limitless resource at almost negligible prices. So the federal government, as the steward of the public patrimony, could no longer justify business as usual.
Public enemy No. 1 for climate change and no longer the fossil fuel utilities prefer to burn to generate electricity, coal has few allies these days. But one state is still fighting to save the industry: Wyoming.http://news.yahoo.com/wyoming-officials-back-various-schemes-bid-rescue-coal-153711722.html (http://news.yahoo.com/wyoming-officials-back-various-schemes-bid-rescue-coal-153711722.html)
From a proposal to burn the stuff underground to hosting a contest to find profitable uses for carbon dioxide from power plants, the top coal-producing state has spent tens of millions of dollars for a coal savior — with little to show.
Yep, take ARAMCO public. Sucker a bunch of people on the IPO. Take the money and run.
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones is urging insurers to voluntarily divest from thermal coal, citing the risks of climate change and the danger of losses on assets backing policyholder obligations.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/california-urges-insurers-to-divest-from-coal-bets-to-cut-risk (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/california-urges-insurers-to-divest-from-coal-bets-to-cut-risk)
Vietnam will effectively shelve the equivalent of 70 large coal power plants following an announcement from the Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung that the country would drop all further coal-fired power plant projects and move towards cleaner energy.http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2016/01/27/coal-dropped-from-vietnams-future-energy-plans/ (http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2016/01/27/coal-dropped-from-vietnams-future-energy-plans/)
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Before the announcement, Vietnam had the biggest plans for coal-fired power plants in Southeast Asia with 44 gigawatts planned (the equivalent of 70 large coal plants) on top of 17 gigawatts under construction. Some of the planned coal projects will be converted to gas and measures will be made to create better investment conditions for wind and solar.
Kentucky coal mines produced their smallest amount of coal in 62 years last year, a figure that’s likely to keep falling.http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/267751-kentucky-coal-output-hits-six-decade-low (http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/267751-kentucky-coal-output-hits-six-decade-low)
A preliminary report Monday from Kentucky’s Energy and Environment Cabinet said the state put out 61.4 million tons of coal in 2015, down 20.7 percent from the prior year and the lowest volume since 1954.
The coal industry in Kentucky had 8,401 people employed at the end of the year, a 28 percent plunge from the end of 2014, and less than half of the 2008 employment figure.
The state agency’s report blamed a number of factors on the decline in demand for Kentucky coal, including environmental regulations, competition from natural gas and decreased electricity demand.
President Obama has instituted a suite of new regulations in his time in office that hurt coal, like his 2012 limits on mercury pollution and his rules last year limiting carbon dioxide output from coal-fired power plants.
Last May saw the first time that natural gas outpaced coal as a power source in the United States for a month, according to the Energy Information Administration. Gas won again for at least four more months last year.
Three percent of Kentucky’s coal went to power plants that closed in 2015, and another 13 percent went to plants slated to close this year.
For what it's worth, I am being told that Peabody is in more trouble than is known. I do recall that plans for an equity injection fell through last year, but I still am somewhat surprised, since the bulk of their debt is not due until 2020.
Peabody and Arch were among the miners that raised a total of $6.4 billion of debt in 2010 and 2011, betting that prices for metallurgical coal, which is sometimes used to produce steel, would continue to rise thanks to China’s growing demand to build its cities. After reaching $330 per metric ton in 2011, prices have since tanked to a quarter of that level. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. forecasts benchmark metallurgical coal prices to fall to $75 this year.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/the-coal-miner-on-everybody-s-list-as-next-bankruptcy-victim (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/the-coal-miner-on-everybody-s-list-as-next-bankruptcy-victim)
Peabody has been working on a debt exchange with its lenders since last year, but has yet to agree to a deal -- Arch tried a similar tact before it went under and failed, accelerating its demise.
...
In terms of capital, Peabody had $1.4 billion in liquidity including cash and availability under its revolving loans as of Nov. 5, according to a company filing. Its cash dropped to $167.4 million on that day from $334.3 million at the end of September. At that rate, the company has about nine months before it runs out of cash.
Croatia is unlikely to go ahead with plans to build a new coal-fired thermal plant in the northern Adriatic for which it entered partnership talks with Japan's Marubeni Corp, the environment minister said on Saturday.http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKL8N15L0HF (http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKL8N15L0HF)
"We need a new energy strategy in line with the European Union plans on boosting renewable energy and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Such plants don't fit in," Slaven Dobrovic said at an energy round-table in Zagreb.
"Croatia backs away from plan to build new coal fired power plant"
Go Ivica
This week, researchers from Duke University published a study on how mountaintop removal mining is drastically changing the landscape in Appalachia, making some regions 40 percent flatter than they were before. The study, which focused on southern West Virginia, found that since the practice began in the 1970s, mountaintop removal mining has lowered the median slope — or steepness — of affected mountains by nearly 10 degrees. It’s also increased the elevation of affected landscapes by 3 meters (about 10 feet), due to valley fills — the practice of dumping the excess rock, dirt, and other waste created by the mountain blasts into valleys.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/11/3748303/mountaintop-removal-flattening-appalachia/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/11/3748303/mountaintop-removal-flattening-appalachia/)
The study, which includes an app that displays how different parts of West Virginia have been affected by the practice, is the first to look at the impacts on mountaintop removal on a three-dimensional scale; past studies had only examined the area of land impacted by the practice. That research “had really done a good job of mapping the spacial extent of mining,” said Matthew Ross, a PhD student at Duke University and lead author of the study.
Vast coal seams dozens of feet thick that lie beneath the rolling hills of the Northern Plains once appeared almost limitless, fueling boasts that domestic reserves were sufficient to power the U.S. for centuries.
But an exhaustive government analysis says that at current prices and mining rates the country's largest coal reserves, located along the Montana-Wyoming border, will be tapped out in just a few decades.
The finding by the U.S. Geological Survey upends conventional wisdom on the lifespan for the nation's top coal-producing region, the Powder River Basin. It also reflects the changing economic realities for companies seeking to profit off extracting the fuel as mining costs rise, coal prices fall and political pressure grows over coal's contribution to climate change.
"You're looking at a forty-year life span, maximum, for Powder River coal," said USGS geologist Jon Haacke, one of the authors of the analysis.
With the en masse resignation of its board of directors, Compliance Energy Corporation has signalled the end of the proposed Raven Coal Mine project, said the president of a Mid-Island watchdog group.http://www.coalwatch.ca/directors-company-proposing-raven-coal-mine-resign-en-masse (http://www.coalwatch.ca/directors-company-proposing-raven-coal-mine-resign-en-masse)
Compliance announced in a news release Friday that its board of directors, in its entirety, had resigned. The company also announced its major Korean and Japanese partners have withdrawn from the project and that its only secured creditor has demanded repayment of a loan.
“If they are importing coal, then they are importing pollution, why can’t Kenya use solar power which Kenya has huge potential in?”http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/mar/03/locals-oppose-plans-to-build-first-coal-fired-power-plant-in-kenya (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/mar/03/locals-oppose-plans-to-build-first-coal-fired-power-plant-in-kenya)
Lack of industryhttp://qz.com/632503/the-deadly-cost-of-bringing-coal-powered-electricity-from-australia-to-india/ (http://qz.com/632503/the-deadly-cost-of-bringing-coal-powered-electricity-from-australia-to-india/)
The elephant in the room for proponents of coal-fired power for the rural, agrarian poor is that remote rural locations have no or little energy-intensive industry.
Industry is necessary to underwrite the costs of electrification for residential consumers. Coal-fired power stations must run constantly; they cannot just run for a few hours a night when a few lights and mobile phone charging is required for 15.8 million households (as in Bihar). A few hours a night is all that they can afford.
If the needs of the rural poor are to be matched to the supply of affordable and benign electricity, then the best option for rural electrification is local renewable micro-grids, implemented by local workers, to develop their economy from within.
The poor will benefit from coal-fired power generation only if you ignore the costs of pollution and if industries can be attracted to rural areas. Without industry, though, electrification for the world’s rural poor requires a different model to that offered by coal-fired power.
This may be why there is speculation that the Carmichael coal project is now on hold.
Natural gas will power a larger share of electricity generation than coal this year in the United States, the federal government predicted Tuesday, continuing what a regional grid operator calls an unprecedented shift in fuels.http://triblive.com/mobile/10108802-96/gas-coal-electricity (http://triblive.com/mobile/10108802-96/gas-coal-electricity)
The latest short-term outlook from the Energy Information Administration expects gas to fire 33.4 percent of electricity this year, compared with 32 percent for coal, which a few years ago powered half the grid.
“This would be the first time that natural gas provides more electricity generation than coal on an annual average basis,” the agency said. Gas outpaced coal during several months last year, but the EIA originally predicted coal would rebound.
...
In a separate report, the EIA said 80 percent of the electricity generation idled by power plant retirements last year was coal-fired. The shuttered plants were mainly built between 1950 and 1970, unable to compete economically with cheaper gas and too expensive to upgrade to comply with air pollution rules, the EIA said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. became the latest big bank to pull back from coal.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-07/jpmorgan-won-t-finance-new-coal-mines-that-worsen-climate-change (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-07/jpmorgan-won-t-finance-new-coal-mines-that-worsen-climate-change)
The New York bank will no longer finance new coal mines around the world and will end support for new coal-fired power plants being developed in “high income” countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, JPMorgan said in a policy statement on its website.
JPMorgan is joining a growing list of financial institutions including Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co. that have pledged to stop or scale back support for coal projects. It’s part of a broader divestment campaign led by environmental groups including San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network looking to move the world’s economies beyond fossil fuels.
“We believe the financial services sector has an important role to play as governments implement policies to combat climate change,” JPMorgan said in the document.
As part of Ontario’s phaseout of coal energy and commitment to a clean energy economy, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and its partners, Sun Edison Canadian Construction LP and Six Nations Development Corp., are developing a 44 MW solar facility on and near the Nanticoke Generating Station site on Lake Erie.http://solarindustrymag.com/ontario-to-convert-nanticoke-coal-plant-into-44-mw-solar-farm (http://solarindustrymag.com/ontario-to-convert-nanticoke-coal-plant-into-44-mw-solar-farm)
The Nanticoke Generating Station, once considered the largest coal plant in North America, was closed for safety reasons last year. This endeavor, the Nanticoke Solar Project, will repurpose the site as an emissions-free energy generating facility.
“The Nanticoke project is a great opportunity for Ontario to take a former coal plant site and transform it into a clean and reliable solar power plant,” says Michelle Chislett, SunEdison’s vice president and country manager for Canada.
Peabody Energy Corp., the United States’s largest coal mining company, hinted Wednesday that it may need to file for bankruptcy protection.http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/273220-top-us-coal-company-might-declare-bankruptcy (http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/273220-top-us-coal-company-might-declare-bankruptcy)
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company issued a “going-concern” notice, a filing that indicates the company may not have the resources it needs to continue operating, Bloomberg Business reports.
...
If Peabody were to file for bankruptcy, it would be the latest and largest in a string of coal companies to take the step. Alpha Natural Resources Inc. and Arch Coal Inc., the second-largest coal company in the U.S., have both declared bankruptcy in the last year.
Peabody’s shares fell by 43 percent as of Wednesday morning. The company’s shares had already lost 97 percent of their value over the last year.
Chris Horner, a DC-based lawyer, climate change denier and Fox News regular, is also being paid as a "Regulatory Counsel" for the coal company, Alpha Natural Resources, according to bankruptcy filings reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Horner’s repeated filing of lawsuits against leading U.S. climate scientists has been described as "harassment."http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13062/chris-horner-revealed-counsel-coal-company-alpha-natural-resources (http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13062/chris-horner-revealed-counsel-coal-company-alpha-natural-resources)
...
With the U.S. coal industry increasingly collapsing, coal company bankruptcy filings are now revealing what has long been suspected but not proven: that leading climate change deniers and many of the biggest defenders of coal, are funded by the industry that they are working to protect.
...
[A] note, signed by the CEOs of all five coal companies, suggests each of them may be funding Horner. It said: "As the 'war on coal' continues, I trust that the commitment we have made to support Chris Horner's work will eventually create great awareness of the illegal tactics being employed to pass laws that are intended to destroy our industry."
...
In addition to his role working for Alpha, whatever it is he does in that role, Chris Horner is an illustrative example of how the coal industry has spread funding to myriad groups, giving the impression of a broad cast of characters for its climate denial performance. In reality its a relatively small group of actors performing all the roles.
Stockpiles of coal are growing to historically high levels at the nation’s power plants.http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/03/21/coal-stockpiles-grow-to-highest-level-in-at-least-25-years/ (http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/03/21/coal-stockpiles-grow-to-highest-level-in-at-least-25-years/)
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Monday 197 million tons of coal were being stored at the end of 2015, the highest year-end level in at least 25 years.
Government analysts attributed the spike to both a decline in coal demand due to an unseasonably warm winter and a larger economic shift away from coal as a power source.
Cheap natural gas and steady growth in wind and solar farms have driven down the price of electricity in many U.S. wholesale markets. And with increasing environmental regulation on power plant emissions, many electricity companies have pulled back on coal-fired generation.
...
The demand problem is evident in the government’s coal supply data. In December, a time when coal stockpiles typically decrease by 3 million tons, the U.S. saw coal reserves grow 8 million tons.
The decline had a ripple effect on the railroad industry. Over the last four months of 2015, an average of 94,000 railroad cars were loaded with coal each week. That was more than 20 percent below average, according to EIA.
Hugh Finlay, the generation director at ScottishPower, said: "Coal has long been the dominant force in Scotland's electricity generation fleet but the closure of Longannet signals the end of an era.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-35882883 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-35882883)
"For the first time in more than a century no power produced in Scotland will come from burning coal.
DHAKA, BANGLADESH — On Saturday, the Sea Horse, a large bulk cargo vessel carrying 1,245 metric tons of coal, sank in the Shela River inside the Sundarbans. In addition to the large amount of coal, hundreds of gallons of fuel oil, batteries and other toxic contaminants may now be polluting the Shela River. Waterkeepers Bangladesh in Mongla, Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) and Pashur River Waterkeeper have been on site working with communities to demand immediate measures to protect the Pashur and Shela Rivers and the Sundarbans.http://waterkeeper.org/fully-loaded-coal-laden-vessel-sinks-in-the-sundarbans/ (http://waterkeeper.org/fully-loaded-coal-laden-vessel-sinks-in-the-sundarbans/)
Scotland has closed its last coal power plant.Quote...
"For the first time in more than a century no power produced in Scotland will come from burning coal.
But in The Netherlands they are burning more and more...
Coal for power production: was 10,914 kton coal, but 13,477 in 2015 >:(
(Steel changed from 4,306 to 4,447 :-[ and " other use" went down from 73 to 53 kton :P)
Source: CBS: http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=37621&LA=NL (http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=37621&LA=NL)
The campaign to convince investors to divest from fossil fuels has picked up steam in the past two weeks, thanks to the imminent bankruptcy of one major old-line energy company.http://mashable.com/2016/03/25/peabody-coal-bankruptcy-divestment/ (http://mashable.com/2016/03/25/peabody-coal-bankruptcy-divestment/)
Peabody Energy, the world's largest privately-held coal company, signaled on March 15 that it may seek bankruptcy protection in order to restructure its skyrocketing debt.
Peabody is not just your ordinary coal company — it is one that has steadfastly refused to incorporate the findings of mainstream climate scientists into its business planning, and may now be suffering as a result.
A Peabody bankruptcy would follow the bankruptcy of several other large coal companies, including Alpha Natural Resources and Arch Coal.
Coal is facing one of the worst downturns in its history, as coal-fired power plants have been idled or converted around the country due to the increased domestic production of natural gas.
In addition, public policies have favored a shift to lower carbon fuels.
Plus, China's demand for U.S. coal for use in steel manufacturing has fallen significantly as its economic growth has sputtered.
Peabody's plight is being used as a case study by climate activists who are seeking the removal of fossil fuel companies from the investment portfolios of universities, religious institutions and state pension funds, among others.
The potential bankruptcy, activists argue, demonstrates that fossil fuel investments are a risky bet.
Coal demand could be higher under current EPA regulations, the Morganstar analyst said. But Peabody doesn’t have a regulatory problem right now. It has a natural gas problem. “The current coal demand level is reflecting very weak gas, and if you think gas will go higher from here, which we do, then coal demand will be higher than it is now,” he said. “The question is can they wait that long.”
Peabody says demand rises for its most competitive coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin when natural gas is selling for above $2.75 per million British thermal units. But natural gas is below $2 per Btu now and has been below $2.75 for months. Peabody’s Illinois Basin coal needs gas to be above $3.75 to compete. Morningstar doesn’t project natural gas prices approaching $4 until 2019.
In the meantime, coal stockpiles are building at utilities, which have some of the highest levels in years. “Now we have another coal stockpile building, so even next year if gas came back up a little, they’d have to work through the coal piles,” the analyst said. Another problem is a crushing debt load, much of it taken on in 2011 to finance the $5.2 billion purchase of Australian miner Macarthur Coal Ltd.
Montana communities won a victory against one of the world’s biggest coal companies earlier this month, when Arch Coal abandoned the Otter Creek mine – the largest proposed new coal strip mine in North America. The story of how the project imploded is one of people power triumphing over a company once thought to be nearly invincible.http://www.salon.com/2016/03/27/big_coal_dealt_a_big_blow_montanans_shut_down_largest_mine_in_north_america_partner/ (http://www.salon.com/2016/03/27/big_coal_dealt_a_big_blow_montanans_shut_down_largest_mine_in_north_america_partner/)
To many observers, the Otter Creek project once seemed unstoppable. It certainly appeared that way in 2011, the year I moved to Missoula, Montana for graduate school. Then-Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer enthusiastically supported the mine, and coal more generally. Forrest Mars, Jr., the billionaire heir to the Mars candy fortune, had just joined Arch and BNSF Railways in backing a proposed railroad spur meant to service Otter Creek. Arch and politicians like Schweitzer predicted a boom in coal demand from economies in Asia.
But what they weren’t counting on was a vocal and active region-wide opposition. The coming together of ordinary people — first in southeast Montana, then an ever-growing number of communities throughout the Northwest —to oppose the Otter Creek mine says much about how land defenders and climate activists are learning to fight back against the planet’s biggest energy companies. The roots of this recent victory go back more than 30 years.
...
In 2010, Arch Coal competitor Peabody announced “coal’s best days are ahead.” However, it was clear even then that a combination of grassroots organizing, new regulations for polluting power plants, and falling prices for cleaner energy was causing U.S. coal use to drop. What came as a surprise was that coal consumption in Asia, especially China, failed to make up for declining U.S. demand.
“The argument that there is no point in Western nations decarbonising because their emission cuts will be dwarfed by emission gains from Asia is based on shaky ground”
Gerard Wynn, founder of the UK’s GWG Energy consultancy and author of the ECIU study, says the idea that a coal boom in Asia will undermine climate change pledges made at the Paris summit is exaggerated.
“In fact, the evidence suggests that the shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuels in favour of cleaner forms of energy is happening much faster than anyone could have expected”, says Wynn.
Citing a prolonged weak market made worse by the warmest winter on record, the nation’s two largest coal companies announced massive layoffs at their Wyoming mines.http://www.wyofile.com/blog/black-thursday-layoffs-hit-500-wyoming-coal-miners/ (http://www.wyofile.com/blog/black-thursday-layoffs-hit-500-wyoming-coal-miners/)
Peabody Energy cut 235 miners, and Arch Coal cut 230 miners on Thursday morning. The reductions represent about 15 percent of each company’s Wyoming workforce. Both companies are based in St. Louis, Missouri.
“We regret the impact of these actions on our employees, their families, and the surrounding communities in the Campbell and Converse county areas,” Peabody Americas president Kemal Williamson said in a prepared statement.
“The U.S. coal industry has seen unprecedented shipment declines this year,” Peabody said in a statement. “Heating degree days year-to-date are 17 percent lower than last year, with March heating degree days down nearly 30 percent versus the 10-year average.”
...
The governor listed natural gas and numerous federal rules and regulations as driving the crunch on Wyoming’s coal mining industry, but didn’t mention the mining companies’ own financial management, a factor that some economists say has forced many into bankruptcy. Wyoming operators Alpha Natural Resources and Arch Coal have already filed bankruptcy, and industry experts expect Peabody to do the same.
Re:Wyoming layoffs
next steps: renege on pensions and cleanup
How many times will we see this.
The biggest coal companies typically pay third parties to ensure that mine sites are cleaned up in the event of financial hardship. But in recent years, many coal companies have relied on a cheaper technique called “self-bonding,” pledging only their own names and financial wherewithal to guarantee their cleanup obligations.http://www.pressherald.com/2016/04/01/will-taxpayers-bear-cost-of-coal-mine-mess/ (http://www.pressherald.com/2016/04/01/will-taxpayers-bear-cost-of-coal-mine-mess/)
With mounting losses and debt loads, the companies do not have enough money to pay for all their obligations, and self-bonding is “not worth the paper it’s written on,” Steve Jakubowski, a bankruptcy lawyer with the firm Robbins, Salomon & Patt, said in an email.
In a bankruptcy, where Alpha Natural Resources is now, a judge can decide which creditors are paid and how much – and state and federal governments could be left holding the bag for reclamation costs.
Japan... is planning to build 45 domestic coal plants, and the Japanese foreign investment bank is considering financing a massive project in Indonesia. As host of the next G7 meeting and a powerful player on the international stage, Japan’s doubling down on coal is not great news for the climate — and environmentalists are wondering how long it will last.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/01/3765187/japan-coal-problem/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/01/3765187/japan-coal-problem/)
“Smart companies are making a swift exit from coal”
Austria's largest electricity provider, Verbund has announced today that it will go fossil fuel free by 2020, speeding up the country’s transition beyond coal.
The decision to end the use of fossil fuels, announced today as a part of Verbund’s new business strategy, sets a 2020 closure date for the company’s last operational coal power station in Mellach, Austria. Only two years ago, Verbund was Austria’s biggest producer of electricity from coal. Recently, it has been phasing out coal power, as it became unprofitable.
Peabody Energy, the world's largest privately owned coal producer and the second biggest on earth, has filed for US bankruptcy protection.
The bankruptcy comes after a sharp fall in coal prices that left it unable to service a recent debt-fueled expansion into Australia, saying it is taking "a major step to strengthen liquidity and reduce debt amid an unprecedented industry downturn."
The company listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion (£7 billion) to $50 billion (£35 billion), according to a court filing.
Peabody's bankruptcy filing ranks among the largest in the commodities sector since energy and metals prices began to fall in the middle of 2014 as once fast-growing markets such as China and Brazil began to slow.
As Q1 earnings releases take center stage, let’s take a hard look at how the coal industry is placed going into the earnings season. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (“EIA”) in its latest release announced a gloomy picture for coal stocks. Per EIA forecasts, coal production will decrease by 143 million short tons (MMst) or 16% in 2016 and a further 3% or 26 MMst in 2017 on a year-over-year basis. EIA also estimates that export of U.S. coal will decline by 15 MMst or 21% in 2016 and by 2 MMst or 3% in 2017.http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/213192/how-are-coal-industry-stocks-shaping-up-before-q1 (http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/213192/how-are-coal-industry-stocks-shaping-up-before-q1)
Coal usage in the U.S. electric power sector accounts for nearly 90% of total U.S. coal consumption. Per an EIA release, coal usage is expected to decline by 50MMst (7%) in 2016 as a result of mild winter weather and competition from natural gas.
Coal export will be hurt by the strong dollar and higher production from global competitors who enjoy the double benefit of cheap labor and lower transportation costs.
The investment that used to go into coal is going increasingly to renewables. In 2015, investment in renewables was double that for coal and gas combined, according to a study (pdf, p.11) from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.http://qz.com/662789/coals-decline-has-been-a-slow-burn-that-suddenly-seems-to-be-picking-up/ (http://qz.com/662789/coals-decline-has-been-a-slow-burn-that-suddenly-seems-to-be-picking-up/)
Also this week, the sun provided more power to British homes than coal for the first time in history (though admittedly only on one single day). For one month last year, coal wasn’t the biggest producer of US energy, for the first time ever.
Swedish state-owned energy giant Vattenfall said on Monday it had reached a deal to sell its German coal operations, employing 8,000 people, as it moves away from activities blamed for climate change.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/18/vattenfall-exits-german-coal-unit-as-it-seeks-sustainable-energy (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/18/vattenfall-exits-german-coal-unit-as-it-seeks-sustainable-energy)
...
“We are now accelerating our shift towards a more sustainable production. The sale means more than 75% of our production will be climate neutral compared to about 50% today,” Hall said.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, stated that the U.S. production of coal last month totaled 52 million short tons — which was a 36 percent decrease from levels seen just one year earlier, in March of 2015.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/19/these-striking-numbers-show-just-how-fast-were-switching-off-coal/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/19/these-striking-numbers-show-just-how-fast-were-switching-off-coal/)
...
The gist? Coal production in the United States is falling, faster than expected and long before the U.S. Clean Power Plan, which was stayed by the Supreme Court, has come into effect.
The Surface Transportation Board today dismissed Tongue River Railroad Company’s (TRRC) application to build the proposed coal-hauling Tongue River Railroad. The railroad would have used the power of federal eminent domain to condemn family farm and ranch land in southeastern Montana in order to haul coal from Arch Coal’s proposed Otter Creek mine to Asian export markets.https://www.northernplains.org/11314-2/ (https://www.northernplains.org/11314-2/)
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Through their collective efforts, Cebuanos won against the proposed coal-powered plant in Sawang Calero, Cebu City.http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/130965-cebu-city-council-junks-coal-plant (http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/130965-cebu-city-council-junks-coal-plant)
...
Sheida Henry, a concerned citizen, started an online petition to stop the construction of the coal-powered plant in Sawang Calero.
Consumption of steam coal used for electricity generation in the U.S. electric power sector fell 29% from its peak of 1,045 million short tons (MMst) in 2007 to an estimated 739 MMst in 2015. Consumption fell in nearly every state, rising only in Nebraska and Alaska over that period. States with the largest declines were concentrated in the Midwest and Southeast, with six states in these regions accounting for nearly half of the national decline. Smaller declines in power sector coal consumption occurred in Wyoming, North Dakota, and Montana, all in the Rocky Mountain region.http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm (http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm)
The coal industry is looking to export terminals like these as a lifeline for their declining industry — as coal consumption in the U.S. continues to decrease due to low oil prices and domestic policies, coal companies hope they can find willing buyers overseas, especially in Asia. In addition to helping add more greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, coal export terminals would require more coal-packed trains to travel from the central United States to the coast, creating a potential public health hazard from coal dust and derailments or spills.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/29/3774114/longview-coal-terminal-environmental-impact-statement/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/29/3774114/longview-coal-terminal-environmental-impact-statement/)
Millennium Bulk Terminals, the company behind the project, first submitted a proposal to build a coal export terminal in Longview in 2009. The initial proposal was unanimously approved by the Cowlitz County commissioners, but Millennium was later forced to withdraw that proposal when internal documents, made public through discovery related to a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, revealed that the company intended to ship 60 million tons of coal annually through the terminal rather than the 5.7 million tons of coal that it had originally applied for.
In 2011, at the peak of proposed coal export terminals throughout the Pacific Northwest, there were six projects that could have shipped, cumulatively, more than 100 million tons of coal a year from the Powder River Basin to Asia. Now, just one proposal within the Pacific Northwest remains.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/11/3776839/coal-export-terminal-decline/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/11/3776839/coal-export-terminal-decline/)
The amount of electricity generated from coal in the UK has fallen to zero several times in the past week, grid data shows.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/13/uk-energy-from-coal-hits-zero-for-first-time-in-over-100-years (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/13/uk-energy-from-coal-hits-zero-for-first-time-in-over-100-years)
In what green energy supporters have described as a “historic turning point” for the UK’s power system, coal-fired electricity first fell to zero late on Monday night and for the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to data from BM Reports.
On Thursday, there was no electricity from coal for more than 12 and a half hours, more than half the day, with it making no contribution to the UK’s power supplies late at night when demand was low and for a period in the day, the data shows.
It is thought to be the first time the UK has been without electricity from coal since the world’s first centralised public coal-fired generator opened at Holborn Viaduct in London, in 1882, according to the Carbon Brief website which reports on climate science and energy policy.
The federal agency that oversees surface coal mining said Wednesday that it would consider drafting new rules to ensure that coal companies can afford to clean up land they damage – though the announcement is not likely to lead to change soon.http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sej-coal-self-bonding-20160518-snap-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sej-coal-self-bonding-20160518-snap-story.html)
The announcement, by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, comes as the nation’s largest coal companies have declared bankruptcy amid a steep downturn in the coal market, putting at risk their ability to meet legal obligations under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which requires them to pay to restore, or reclaim, land they have mined.
“The bankruptcy of the large coal mining companies has raised grave concerns,” said Joe Pizarchik, director of the surface mining enforcement agency, in a conference call Wednesday.
The agency said it would specifically consider whether to revise what many critics say is a flawed process allowed under the 1977 law, called “self-bonding,” which some states allow coal companies to use to meet financial obligations for reclamation work. Under self-bonding, instead of having to take out third-party surety bonds or another form of insurance, companies are effectively allowed to argue that their history of financial health is all the evidence they need to prove they can pay for reclamation.
But over the last year, as companies like Arch Coal and Peabody Energy have declared bankruptcy, the possibility has increased that companies will not be able to clean up their mines. Critics and some government regulators worry taxpayers could be forced to pay for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of reclamation.
...
Pizarchik said Wednesday that he hoped the announcement would spur a broad public response. He repeatedly noted that states have the power to change things far more quickly than the rule-making process if by simply ending self-bonding. He said it was reasonable to question whether there had been “collusion or malfeasance” to continue self-bonding among states or industry given the obvious stress on the coal industry.
Oregon has become the first US state to pass laws to rid itself of coal, committing to eliminate the use of coal-fired power by 2035 and to double the amount of renewable energy in the state by 2040.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/03/oregon-coal-climate-law-kate-brown (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/03/oregon-coal-climate-law-kate-brown)
Despite the fact that federal environmental regulators have wrapped up a coal ash rewrite, some utilities still have their toughest battles ahead of them — how to get rid of the yucky stuff that is now on their sites and how to prevent it from leaching into the drinking water supplies.http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/06/15/coal-ash-mess-continues-to-muddy-utilities-citizens-and-regulators/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/06/15/coal-ash-mess-continues-to-muddy-utilities-citizens-and-regulators/)
The infighting is particularly rough in Georgia and North Carolina. There, environmentalists are pushing harder to uproot existing sites while coal-burning utilities are saying it can be safe where it is. It’s a fight that will only escalate with the retirement of more and more coal plants. The Environmental Protection Agency can now regulate those sites but the states will still have a lot of say.
As most developed economies turn their back on coal, Japan is burning record amounts for electricity generation and plans to use even more of the dirtiest fossil fuel to fill the gap after the Fukushima disaster paralysed its nuclear sector.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-coal-idUSKCN0Z22VR (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-coal-idUSKCN0Z22VR)
But as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government pushes coal power, both at home and through exporting technology abroad, some of Japan's powerful trading houses are cutting or freezing coal investments over concerns about the environmental fallout.
Five coal-mining companies spent $95 million to lobby U.S. lawmakers and more than half a billion dollars on salaries for top executives in the decade before they filed for bankruptcy, according to a report by an environmental group.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-28/coal-companies-spent-95-million-on-lobbying-before-bankruptcies (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-28/coal-companies-spent-95-million-on-lobbying-before-bankruptcies)
...environmentalist Gina Lopez [has] been offered the position of Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerry-arances-/phasing-out-coal-the-phil_b_10707308.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerry-arances-/phasing-out-coal-the-phil_b_10707308.html)
Ms. Gina Lopez is a well-known environmentalist and vocal anti-mining advocate. In recent times she has lent her voice is and support to affected communities and the broad movement in calling for the phase-out of coal plants and coal mining in the country.
In one of her live interviews after officially accepting the offer to head DENR, Ms. Lopez candidly criticised coal use in the country. She argued against using coal when there is an abundance of solar, wind, and geothermal energy in the country, and against the use of an outdated and dirty energy source which many countries are already phasing out.
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Solar Philippines recently announced a plan to establish the country’s first local solar manufacturing plant.
This announcement adds to the declaration from a major energy utility, the Energy Development Corporation, last month that they would never develop, build or invest in any coal plant and will massively ramp up renewable energy. In the Philippines, change is starting in the private sector as more and more companies are shifting away from coal.
SAN FRANCISCO — The city of Oakland, Calif., on Monday banned the transport and storage of large coal shipments, a blow to a developer’s plans to use a former Army base as an export terminal to ship coal to China and other overseas markets.http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/oakland-coal-transport-ban.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/oakland-coal-transport-ban.html)
The terminal would have been the largest coal shipment facility on the West Coast, with a planned capacity to increase coal exports in the United States by 19 percent, according to the Sierra Club, the environmental group.
Weeks of feisty debate over the ban, which the Oakland City Council unanimously passed late Monday night and which will become law after a second reading next month, covered familiar ground: the trade-offs between jobs and environmental concerns.
But the debate also raised the larger and more unusual question of how much a city should weigh the global environmental impacts of the commodities that flow through its ports. A report prepared by the city argued for a coal ban partly because the coal, once it was burned overseas, would contribute to climate change and rising sea levels.
“Oakland cannot afford to ignore the scientific evidence that clearly show the harmful effects and risk associated with coal,” said Dan Kalb, a City Council member who proposed the ban along with the mayor, Libby Schaaf. “With this new law, we’re taking the steps needed to protect our community, our workers and our planet.”
Coal used to generate U.S. power fell in April to its lowest monthly level since 1978, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report.http://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-natgas-coal-idUKL1N19J0H4 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-natgas-coal-idUKL1N19J0H4)
Coal-fired power plants generated just 72.2 million megawatt hours in April, their lowest since April 1978, according to EIA data released on Friday. One megawatt is enough to power about 1,000 U.S. homes.
Natural gas, meanwhile, surpassed coal as the United States' top fuel source for the third straight month, producing 100.0 million MWh in April, the EIA said.
Of the total 293.3 million MWh generated in April, gas accounted for 34 percent and coal just 25 percent.
The Obama Administration last week took a closely-watched first step in its effort to reform the federal coal program by issuing a rule that will make it harder for coal companies to dodge royalty payments when mining on taxpayer-owned public lands.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/06/3795892/coal-royalty-loophole-closed/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/06/3795892/coal-royalty-loophole-closed/)
The rule, issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR), closes a loophole that enabled coal companies to sell coal to their own subsidiaries — and then pay royalties on that artificially depressed price. Through these self-dealing transactions, coal companies have been able to shortchange U.S. taxpayers and state governments millions of dollars in royalty payments that are owed on federal coal.
The UK government’s Coal Authority has granted licences for underground coal gasification (UCG) covering more than 1,500 sq km of seabed off north-east and north-west England, Wales and east central Scotland.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/25/burning-coal-gas-uk-seabeds-flame-pollution-report-coal-authority-ucg (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/25/burning-coal-gas-uk-seabeds-flame-pollution-report-coal-authority-ucg)
The Scottish and Welsh governments have put temporary moratoriums on the technology because of concerns about the dangers. Scottish ministers are awaiting an independent review in September, which is likely to be critical of UCG.
But a company led by the veteran oil entrepreneur and former owner of the Spectator, Algy Cluff, is pursuing major developments near the shores of northern England.
Cluff Natural Resources has licences for nine potential undersea coalfields amounting to 640 sq km, valid until 2018-2020. Two are off the coast near Durham, two off Cumbria, two off Wales and three in the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
Clean energy and energy efficiencyhttp://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-how-a-post-coal-appalachia-could-thrive/ (http://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-how-a-post-coal-appalachia-could-thrive/)
Analysts say the shift to clean power will create more jobs than it eliminates. Enterprising coal workers are trying to bring a few of those jobs to Appalachia.
Retired Kentucky coal miner Carl Shoupe and his colleagues on the Benham Power Board are spearheading a citywide energy efficiency program. Contractors will make homes more power-thrifty — installing insulation, sealing windows, etc. — and homeowners will pay for the upgrades through a charge on their monthly electric bill. The charge will be less than what customers save on energy.
Shoupe believes communities that once ran on coal can add jobs and save money by investing in energy efficiency. According to a report from Synapse, an energy consulting firm, Kentucky could create more than 28,000 jobs by embracing energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Over the last eight years, Luminant has used Texas’ industry-friendly property tax protest system to whittle away at its bill. Just eight years ago, in 2008, the Monticello plant was appraised at $1.05 billion. Today, Luminant claims the plant is worth only $50 million — that it has lost 95 percent of its value in eight years. Even if the appraisal district wins in court, the plant’s current taxable value of $341 million has dropped by more than two-thirds since 2008, taking millions of dollars off the tax rolls for Mount Pleasant ISD, Northeast Texas Community College, Titus County and the Titus County Hospital District. Under Texas law, Luminant and other big industrial taxpayers can sue to drastically lower their property valuations, often forcing local governments to cut budgets and raise taxes to make up for the lost revenue.https://www.texasobserver.org/luminant-corp-property-tax/ (https://www.texasobserver.org/luminant-corp-property-tax/)
El Paso Electric has become coal-free and no longer is using the fossil fuel to power its generators, making it the only electric utility in Texas and New Mexico to have no coal-fired power generation, officials said.http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2016/07/29/el-paso-electric-coal-power-plant-ownership-sale-environment-energy/87707782/ (http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2016/07/29/el-paso-electric-coal-power-plant-ownership-sale-environment-energy/87707782/)
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El Paso Electric on July 6 completed the sale of its part ownership in the Four Corners coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Farmington, N.M. That was the company's sole source of coal power.
The company sold its 7 percent ownership stake, which it held for 50 years, for $32 million to Arizona Public Service Co., or APS, a Phoenix-based electric utility, which operates the plant. Three other electric utilities in New Mexico and Arizona still have ownership interests in the plant and get power from it.
El Paso Electric won't get most of the money for the sale because it had to pay almost $28 million in future costs for when the plant closes in possibly 15 years - making the deal a virtual wash for the company, said Nathan Hirschi, the company's chief financial officer.
Nearly a decade after the worst coal ash spills in U.S. history, a federally owned public utility is closing 10 toxic coal ash pits across Tennessee and Alabama. But it won’t clear up the toxic residue from the pits, leaving open the possibility of water contamination.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/08/01/3803703/tva-to-cap-coal-ash-pits-in-place/ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/08/01/3803703/tva-to-cap-coal-ash-pits-in-place/)
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said Friday it planned to cap-in-place 10 unlined coal ash at six plants where the ash was dumped for some 50 years.
Coal ash is the byproduct of burning coal for energy and contains known carcinogens like arsenic, lead, and mercury. Energy companies dumped coal ash for decades into ditches they then filled with water. Usually unlined and close to waterways, coal ash ponds are known to leak, and went federally unregulated until 2014.
"now what to do with all that horrible petroeum coke left over from refining alberta dilbit???"
U.S. states should force coal companies to set aside collateral to pay for future mine cleanups and protect taxpayers as the industry braces for further declines, a leading federal regulator said on Tuesday.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-cleanup-idUSKCN10K1WD (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-cleanup-idUSKCN10K1WD)
On Wednesday, Megan Davies, a state epidemiologist with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, resigned over the controversy, stating that she felt that the Department had deliberately misled the public about the safety of potentially contaminated wells.https://thinkprogress.org/coal-ash-carolinas-public-burden-a71cbdcd58d7
The report, published by the consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen, found that seven of the state’s 19 coal plants — which represent 40 percent of the state’s coal capacity — are financially inviable and likely to hemorrhage money if power production continues to decline at coal plants and energy market prices remain low in the coming years.https://www.texasobserver.org/coal-plants-shutter-public-citizen-report/ (https://www.texasobserver.org/coal-plants-shutter-public-citizen-report/)
The seven plants — including three owned by Luminant, one owned by Dynegy and three public utility or agency-owned plants — are likely to lose more than $160 million a year. Luminant’s Monticello plant, for instance, is likely to be worst off. It could lose anywhere from $60 million to $100 million dollars each year from 2017 to 2024, according to the report.
The last bastion of the American coal industry has been breached.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-09-20/bust-hits-america-s-cowboy-coal-basin-after-40-years-of-boom (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-09-20/bust-hits-america-s-cowboy-coal-basin-after-40-years-of-boom)
The bust that’s devastated Appalachia for five years has finally reached cowboy country’s Powder River Basin. For four decades, the 300-mile corridor stretching from Wyoming north into Montana thrived on the strength of the cleaner low-sulfur coal carved from its vast plains. No more.
After producing more than 400 million tons every year since 2004, the region’s output this year will drop by about 100 million tons, analysts say, undercut by cheap natural gas, growing utility use of renewables and new environmental rules. Since last fall, 1,100 workers, or 17 percent of the mining workforce, have lost their jobs, leaving the industry and the economy reeling.
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Coal has a long history in the Powder River Basin. With Appalachian coal closer to the big city populations of the northeast, though, the region early on mostly served its surrounding area.
That changed in the 1970s, when approval of the Clean Air Act combined with cheaper shipping rates from railroad deregulation to smooth the way to eastern markets. Before long, power plants as far away as Georgia were deciding whether to install expensive “scrubbers” to reduce sulfur dioxide under the new clean-air rules, or buy the Powder River Basin’s suddenly cheaper low-sulfur coal. Production soared.
The basin offers two key advantages. Having developed under fresh-water conditions dating to the age of dinosaurs, the basin’s coal has a sulfur content that’s less than a fourth of the variety that formed even earlier beneath salt water in much of competing Appalachia and Illinois.
Secondly, while the region’s coal has less carbon per ton than Appalachia’s product, forcing plants to burn 50 percent more to generate the same electricity, it makes up for that with its sheer abundance. The coal is located close to the surface, eliminating the need for deep mines. Instead, the region depends on cheaper open-pit mining, using hulking excavators.
Powder River “was just booming — 40 straight years,’’ Godby said. “The best way to forecast output was to use a straight line, linear and up.’’
Now, though, the direction of that line has changed, and industry executives and analysts have big concerns about the future.
Previously, a staged shutdown had been considered, but orders from WorkSafe Victoria requiring new investment are understood to have all but convinced the company the plant is no longer viable, with environmental concerns also a factor.http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/hazelwood-shutdown-victorias-dirtiest-power-station-set-to-close-early-next-year-20160923-grn0ph.html (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/hazelwood-shutdown-victorias-dirtiest-power-station-set-to-close-early-next-year-20160923-grn0ph.html)
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Environment Victoria chief executive Mark Wakeham said retiring Hazelwood was the single largest step that could be taken to clean up Australia's energy supply.
The Scottish government has said it "cannot support" underground coal gasification, after a new report raised environmental concerns.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37565927 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37565927)
Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse told MSPs that the gas extraction technique "poses numerous and serious environmental risks".
He said it would have "no place in Scotland's energy mix at this time".
Every day, between 80 to 100 trains laden with coal leave the mines of the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, bound for export terminals and power plants across the country.https://thinkprogress.org/coal-dust-clean-water-lawsuit-bnsf-b3748b74cb73
But coal trains can’t be covered, due to the combustible nature of coal, which means that as these trains rumble through communities, and near rivers, they can spew coal dust into the air and, potentially, into bodies of water.
For years, environmental and climate groups have tried to hold railroad companies that ship coal responsible for the pollution caused by coal trains. Now, a federal judge in Seattle has determined that, under the Clean Water Act, a case can go forward to hold BNSF Railway liable for pollution from coal trains. The judge warned that, to prevail, environmental and climate groups must show that debris from the coal trains is directly polluting bodies of water.
When the U.S. Department of Energy pulled the plug in February on a $1 billion subsidy to build FutureGen, a “clean coal” plant in Illinois, it put a merciful end to a twisted tale that had been unraveling for years. The coal industry peddled influence at high levels among both Democrats and Republicans to move the project forward, but in the end it was killed—and rightly so—by economic realities.http://ieefa.org/how-a-clean-coal-myth-squandered-hundreds-of-millions-of-taxpayer-dollars-before-it-was-finally-unmasked/ (http://ieefa.org/how-a-clean-coal-myth-squandered-hundreds-of-millions-of-taxpayer-dollars-before-it-was-finally-unmasked/)
I realize that many here view some of my comments as dreadfully pessimistic (Heck, I struggle with this at times myself.)Funny, but I was just about to post that you are somewhat optimistic imho (when you wrote that we have three decades).
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We need to start today.
rocketing nuclear waste into the sun.All we need is one peri-launch disaster, and 10s to 100s of kms2 become contaminated. But I used to like this idea!
Market forces actually act extremely rapidly because the rational decision for large businesses has a single tipping point where it switches from the black option to the green option, and once that happens mass adoption follows within ten years for everyone and instantly for large businesses.
Quoterocketing nuclear waste into the sun.All we need is one peri-launch disaster, and 10s to 100s of kms2 become contaminated. But I used to like this idea!
Market forces actually act extremely rapidly because the rational decision for large businesses has a single tipping point where it switches from the black option to the green option, and once that happens mass adoption follows within ten years for everyone and instantly for large businesses.
This graph. 8)
Market forces actually act extremely rapidly because the rational decision for large businesses has a single tipping point where it switches from the black option to the green option, and once that happens mass adoption follows within ten years for everyone and instantly for large businesses.
This graph. 8)
I couldn't find this interesting image on the net, but I'm kind of guessing it is a US chart and not a global one. Could you link to the source?
Thanks for the source. Zooming in, I can clearly see that this graph applies to a developed country, and it does help to drive my point home: even though electricity reached 100% in that country about 60 years ago, globally electricity reaches only ~85% of people today. The same applies for many other home inventions and appliances.Valid points -- although varying economies and infrastructures may allow adoption, just in different and likely unexpected ways.* I looked for other examples and found this graph, which is more clearly labelled as "U.S. households."
On a different level, the US is shutting down coal plants while India is building many such plants.
Conclusion: tipping points are local and not global, because economics and infrastructure are different in each locale, and take-up of a new technology across the globe will not be as fast as that graph. Not even close, and not fast enough.
Quoterocketing nuclear waste into the sun.All we need is one peri-launch disaster, and 10s to 100s of kms2 become contaminated. But I used to like this idea!
A dozen international poverty and development organizations published a report last week on the impact of building new coal power plants in countries where a large percentage of the population lacks access to electricity. The report’s conclusions are strikingly counter-intuitive: on the whole, building coal power plants does little to help the poor, and often it can actually make them poorer.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/31/coal-doesnt-help-the-poor-it-makes-them-poorer (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/31/coal-doesnt-help-the-poor-it-makes-them-poorer)
Delivering electricity to those in energy poverty is certainly important. For example, household air pollution killed 4.3 million people globally in 2012; many of those lives could be saved and health improved with the use of electric stoves to replace burning wood or charcoal. However, the question remains whether coal is the best way to deliver that electricity.
Coal prices are surging back (especially in the seaborne export and metallurgical coal markets overseas) for some areas due to overly ambitious production cuts and shut-ins at 3rd rate mines in China as well as an economic recovery in the heavy industry sector (after an outright contraction late last year and earlier this year). The result is a rapidly recovering price and mines re-opening.
When Carissa Sellards talks to her West Virginia University friends about post-graduation plans, one dilemma keeps coming up – whether to stay in their home state or strike out for more promising opportunities elsewhere.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-westvirginia-idUSKBN12Y0Z9 (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-westvirginia-idUSKBN12Y0Z9)
If recent history holds, over half of them will either not find work or leave the state, contributing to a brain drain of young talent that is pushing the state to try to reinvent its economy and break with a coal industry in long-term decline.
Of all the environmental and climate change challenges facing North Carolina—including its vulnerability to sea level rise, the extreme flooding from Hurricane Matthew, the wisdom of drilling offshore and fracking throughout the state—the one issue Gov. Pat McCrory has struggled with most politically is coal ash.https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27102016/north-carolina-governor-pat-mccrory-coal-ash-roy-cooper
In a tight re-election campaign against Democrat Roy Cooper, the current state attorney general, McCrory has had to spend little time defending his stance on climate change (he questions whether it is human-caused), and polls indicate his support for fracking and offshore drilling has a majority of his state's support.
But North Carolina has more coal ash impoundments on waterways near people and property than any other state and a massive spill that resulted in federal criminal charges in 2014 put the issue near the top of voters' concerns. It hasn't helped McCrory that the company responsible for that incident and all 33 of the coal ash dumps at 14 sites in North Carolina is McCrory's longtime former employer and political donor, Duke Energy.
He can roll back regulations, slash government jobs, pull out of global treaties and strip the tax benefits from renewable energy. But can Donald Trump make coal great again?http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-10/trump-may-dig-coal-but-industry-s-outlook-is-flat-at-best (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-10/trump-may-dig-coal-but-industry-s-outlook-is-flat-at-best)
Probably not, say energy industry leaders and analysts.
Coal’s share of the U.S. electricity mix has plunged to less than a third today from about half in 2008, the result of cheap natural gas and stepped-up efforts to curb carbon emissions. While Trump, promising to restore jobs, drew boisterous crowds in mining country under slogans such as "Trump Digs Coal," his best efforts may do little more than halt the industry’s steep decline.
“Donald Trump has the courage, the passion and the commitment to get it done,” said Robert E. Murray, the industry’s most outspoken champion and chief executive officer of Murray Energy Corp. “But I do not see an increase in the market for coal.”
Plans to close all coal-fired power stations by the end of 2025 were published today by the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).https://www.carbonbrief.org/uk-plans-to-close-last-coal-plant-by-2025 (https://www.carbonbrief.org/uk-plans-to-close-last-coal-plant-by-2025)
The plans, which are open for consultation until 1 February 2017, would meet a commitment made in the run up to the Paris climate talks last year.
The options being considered include applying emissions limits to existing coal plants in 2025 and setting a limit on running hours or emissions from 2023. Carbon Brief runs through the details.
The Trump administration could help the coal industry somewhat by unwinding President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which was designed to replace coal-fired utility plants with those using natural gas and renewable energy sources. But the effects of the plan so far may be hard to reverse.http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/20/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/20/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html)
The tighter air pollution regulations, which are still under challenge in court, forced utilities to choose between revamping aging coal-fired power plants to make them cleaner, or switching to natural gas or green sources like wind and solar. Utilities across the country typically decided to switch.
Last year, as a result, 94 coal-fired power plants were closed across the country, and this year 40 more are expected to close by the end of December. It is most unlikely that Mr. Trump could do anything to bring those plants back online.
"All the older power plants that burned Eastern coal have been basically torn down, dismantled, put in mothballs, some of them permanently," said Robert J. Zik, the now-retired former vice president for operations at TECO Coal, a subsidiary of TECO Energy that was sold to another operator last year.
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Industry executives say that to extend the life of at least some of the 400 or so coal-burning power plants still in use in the United States, the Trump administration and lawmakers in Congress could work with them on "clean coal" initiatives.
Acknowledging that climate change is an issue even if Mr. Trump does not, Mr. Reavey of Cloud Peak Energy wants federal incentives for utilities to refit existing power plants to burn coal more efficiently and to attach systems to their facilities that will capture carbon emissions and sink them permanently in the ground. Such systems, known as carbon capture and sequestration, are currently so costly that utilities simply prefer to replace coal-fired plants with gas-fired ones.
Finland could become the first country to ditch coal for good. As part of a new energy and climate strategy due to be announced tomorrow, the government is considering banning the burning of coal for energy by 2030.https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113827-finland-set-to-become-first-country-to-ban-coal-use-for-energy/ (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113827-finland-set-to-become-first-country-to-ban-coal-use-for-energy/)
Now that his endorsed presidential candidate is poised to deregulate energy, McConnell has already changed his tune.https://thinkprogress.org/mcconnell-admits-jobs-war-on-coal-8938da18e5e3
In a Friday appearance at the University of Louisville, he tamped down any expectations that coal jobs would come back. “We are going to be presenting to the new president a variety of options that could end this assault,” McConnell told attendees. Then he added “Whether that immediately brings business back is hard to tell because it’s a private sector activity.”
McConnell also noted that he did not intend to spend any government dollars to help those who have lost coal jobs and may not regain them. “A government spending program is not likely to solve the fundamental problem of growth,” McConnell argued. “I support the effort to help these coal counties wherever we can but that isn’t going to replace whatever was there when we had a vibrant coal industry.”
Coal power output hit zero for the first time in more than 150 years in March 2016. It has been so low that output between April and September was less than that from the UK’s solar panels.https://www.carbonbrief.org/two-charts-show-how-uk-coal-use-is-collapsing (https://www.carbonbrief.org/two-charts-show-how-uk-coal-use-is-collapsing)
The UK’s top-up carbon tax, the carbon price floor, doubled in April 2015. Three of the UK’s remaining coal plants then closed a year later, in spring 2016. The UK plans to close all unabated coal-fired power stations by 2025.
With everything that Republicans want to do — repeal Obamacare, overhaul the tax code — it might seem odd that one of Congress' very first acts would be to kill an obscure Obama-era regulation that restricts coal companies from dumping mining waste into streams and waterways.http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/03/why-congress-killed-a-rule-restricting-coal-companies-waste-dumping.html (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/03/why-congress-killed-a-rule-restricting-coal-companies-waste-dumping.html)
But that is indeed what's going on. On Thursday, the Senate voted 54-45 to repeal the so-called "stream protection rule" — using a regulation-killing tool known as the Congressional Review Act. The House took a similar vote yesterday, and if President Trump agrees, the stream protection rule will be dead. Coal companies will now have a freer hand in dumping mining debris in streams.
Killing this regulation won't really help Trump fulfill his goal of reversing the coal industry's decline; that decline has more to do with cheap natural gas than anything else. Instead, Republicans are mostly focusing on this rule because they can. Because the stream protection rule wasn't finished until very late in 2016, it's much, much easier to kill than most of the other Obama-era rules around coal pollution. It was an easy target, so long as the GOP acted fast....
The largest coal-fired power plant in the West — one of the biggest climate polluters in the nation — could close later this year, a major symbolic blow to the future of coal as the backbone of America’s electric power grid.http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wests-largest-coal-plant-may-close-21117 (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wests-largest-coal-plant-may-close-21117)
The owners of Arizona’s Navajo Generating Station northeast of the Grand Canyon announced in early January that low natural gas prices and the rising costs of generating electricity using coal make it too expensive to operate the plant. A decision on the plant’s fate is expected this spring.
...
“In the near term, there is a chance coal may rebound as gas finds new markets, pushing gas prices up slightly,” Regan said. “But even looking out to 2020, 2025, I don’t see much of a comeback, irrespective of the Clean Power Plan.”
That’s true even if Trump administration policy heavily supports both fracking and coal because when it comes to generating electricity, natural gas and coal compete with each other.
“Anything that boosts domestic natural gas production will directly, negatively impact coal-fired power plants by reducing their margins as gas prices depress wholesale power prices,” Regan said.
One of Trump’s biggest campaign promises to voters in coal-producing Appalachian states such as West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky was that he’d “bring back coal” by killing off the Clean Power Plan and other regulations seen as detrimental to the coal industry. But those same states also depend heavily on natural gas production.
“It's going to be difficult for Trump to be both pro-natural gas and pro-coal at the same time, unless he intends to directly subsidize coal plants or find other markets for U.S. coal,” Regan said.
The utilities that own the Navajo Generating Station coal-fired power plant near Page are tired of overpaying for power and decided Monday to close the plant when their lease expires at the end of 2019.http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/02/13/utilities-vote-close-navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-2019/97866668/ (http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/02/13/utilities-vote-close-navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-2019/97866668/)
To run that long, the utility owners need to work out an arrangement with the Navajo Nation, which owns the land, to decommission the plant after the lease expires. Otherwise, the owners will have to close at the end of this year to have time to tear down the plant's three generators and be gone by 2020.
Environmentalists cheered the decision to shutter one of the biggest polluters in the nation, while other stakeholders such as the U.S. Department of the Interior and coal supplier Peabody Energy hope to find a way for the Navajo Nation or another entity to step in and keep the plant going beyond 2019.
...
NV Energy already plans to exit the plant, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power recently sold its 21.2 percent stake to SRP for $13 million.
When SRP made that deal in 2015, officials said it would help keep the plant running through 2044 because they could "retire" the Los Angeles and Nevada portions of the plant, or one generator, in 2019 to comply with environmental regulations. That would allow another 24 years of operations at the two remaining generators.
But cheap natural gas has thrown a wrench into those plans. Over the course of the past year, SRP has gone from fighting to keep the plant open to arguing for its closure.
Also holding a stake in the outcome is the Central Arizona Project, which uses some of the Bureau of Reclamation's share of the power to run pumps on the canal to bring Colorado River water to Phoenix, Tucson and tribes in central Arizona.
CAP released a presentation Monday that concludes it would have saved $38.5 million in 2016 if it had bought power on the open market rather than from the Navajo Generating Station. ...
“Timing wise it feels like now is a fantastic time to offload coal assets.”
BEIJING — China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea until the end of the year, the Commerce Ministry announced Saturday, in a surprise move that would cut off a major financial lifeline for Pyongyang and significantly enhance the effectiveness of U.N. sanctions.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-suspends-north-koreas-coal-imports-striking-at-regimes-financial-lifeline/2017/02/18/8390b0e6-f5df-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-suspends-north-koreas-coal-imports-striking-at-regimes-financial-lifeline/2017/02/18/8390b0e6-f5df-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html)
Coal is North Korea’s largest export item, and also China’s greatest point of leverage over the regime.
The ministry said the ban would come into force Sunday and be effective until Dec. 31....
The coal industry's multi-million-dollar advertising and lobbying campaign in the run-up to the last federal election was bankrolled by money deducted from state mining royalty payments and meant to fund research into "clean coal".http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/coal-advertising-funded-by-money-meant-for-clean-coal-research/8287326 (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/coal-advertising-funded-by-money-meant-for-clean-coal-research/8287326)
In an apparent first salvo in a public relations campaign to shift blame for the Kemper power plant boondoggle away from himself and corporate management and onto state regulators, Southern Company chief executive officer Tom Fanning admitted this week that the Kemper plant is not economically viable as a coal-burning power plant.
When the PSC held hearings in October 2009 to determine if the state actually needed additional electrical power, the Sierra Club pointed out that Mississippi already had 12 natural gas plants that sat idle 85 percent of the time and could provide up to 7,995 megawatts of power. Many of these were so-called merchant plants that were for sale for $500 million or less.
These CCS coal plants get public support from seemingly strange sources. Like the minister of environment and climate change in canada praising the CCS plant in Saskatchewan.
Since building and running the Sask CCS plant adds a cost equivalent to a $100/tonne carbon tax the minister is supportive. These plants are an important way to drive utilities away from considering new coal power plants. Also they make $30/tonne carbon taxes look like bargains.
As Kentucky regulators and utilities are pushing to loosen regulations on the state’s coal ash ponds and landfills, more pollution problems are emerging at one of the sites in central Kentucky.http://wfpl.org/as-state-loosens-oversight-coal-ash-contaminates-central-kentucky-waterway/ (http://wfpl.org/as-state-loosens-oversight-coal-ash-contaminates-central-kentucky-waterway/)
Over the past six years, documents show contaminated water including arsenic and selenium leached from the ash pond at the E.W. Brown Power Station into groundwater and directly into Herrington Lake, near Danville. Despite remedial measures taken by Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, the pollution persists.
Now, fish tissue sampling has revealed the coal ash pond’s selenium runoff has poisoned aquatic life in the lake.
Meanwhile, the same regulators who monitor the runoff from that plant have been working extensively with the utility industry — including a group that represents LG&E and KU — to weaken state regulations governing coal ash.
Experts say that under the new regulations, the pollution at the E.W. Brown plant might never have been detected....
The amount of new coal power being built around the world fell by nearly two-thirds last year, prompting campaigners to claim the polluting fossil fuel was in freefall.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/coal-power-plants-green-energy-china-india (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/coal-power-plants-green-energy-china-india)
The dramatic decline in new coal-fired units was overwhelmingly due to policy shifts in China and India and subsequent declining investment prospects, according to a report by Greenpeace, the US-based Sierra Club and research network CoalSwarm.
The report said the amount of new capacity starting construction was down 62% in 2016 on the year before, and work was frozen at more than a hundred sites in China and India. In January, China’s energy regulator halted work on a further 100 new coal-fired projects, suggesting the trend was not going away.
Researchers for the groups said a record amount of coal power station capacity was also retired globally last year, mostly in the US and EU, including Scotland closing its last one.
One of the reasons for the fall in new plants was that too much capacity had been built in recent years, particularly in China.
...
In total, 64GW of coal capacity was retired last year, mainly in the US and EU. Despite US President Donald Trump saying on Monday that he is preparing a new executive order to help America’s ailing coal industry, campaigners echoed analysts who have said he is unlikely to be able to significantly stop its decline.
“Markets are demanding clean energy, and no amount of rhetoric from Donald Trump will be able to stop the fall of coal in the US and across the globe,” said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner at the Sierra Club, a US-based NGO which has managed to force many US coal plants to close over the last decade....
The proposed Adani coal mine has been granted unlimited access to groundwater by the Queensland government in a move farmers fear would allow it to drain huge amounts of water from the Great Artesian Basin.http://www.smh.com.au/environment/barbaric-farmers-rattled-as-adani-coal-mine-granted-unlimited-water-access-20170404-gvdk5v.html (http://www.smh.com.au/environment/barbaric-farmers-rattled-as-adani-coal-mine-granted-unlimited-water-access-20170404-gvdk5v.html)
According to a copy of Adani's water licence obtained by Fairfax Media, the $16 billion Carmichael mine merely needs to monitor and report the amount of water it extracts with a permit that runs until 2077.
...
Europe’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020)
The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.
National energy companies from every EU nation – except Poland and Greece – have signed up to the initiative, which will overhaul the bloc’s energy-generating future.
...
Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, hailed the news as “the beginning of the end for coal”.
“It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU,” he said. “The question is: what is the date for its phase out in the EU, and how hard will the coal industry fight to keep plants open, even if they are no longer economically viable?”
...
The end of coal: EU energy companies pledge no new plants from 2020QuoteEurope’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020)
The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.
National energy companies from every EU nation – except Poland and Greece – have signed up to the initiative, which will overhaul the bloc’s energy-generating future.
...
Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, hailed the news as “the beginning of the end for coal”.
“It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU,” he said. “The question is: what is the date for its phase out in the EU, and how hard will the coal industry fight to keep plants open, even if they are no longer economically viable?”
...
I know the EU are the good guys, but any new coal plant built now could last 50 years. Why are the necessary actions always postponed to the future? Why not immediately?
(sorry about the rant...)
The end of coal: EU energy companies pledge no new plants from 2020QuoteEurope’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020)
The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.
National energy companies from every EU nation – except Poland and Greece – have signed up to the initiative, which will overhaul the bloc’s energy-generating future.
...
Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, hailed the news as “the beginning of the end for coal”.
“It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU,” he said. “The question is: what is the date for its phase out in the EU, and how hard will the coal industry fight to keep plants open, even if they are no longer economically viable?”
...
The end of coal: EU energy companies pledge no new plants from 2020QuoteEurope’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/05/the-end-of-coal-eu-energy-companies-pledge-no-new-plants-from-2020)
The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.
National energy companies from every EU nation – except Poland and Greece – have signed up to the initiative, which will overhaul the bloc’s energy-generating future.
...
Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, hailed the news as “the beginning of the end for coal”.
“It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU,” he said. “The question is: what is the date for its phase out in the EU, and how hard will the coal industry fight to keep plants open, even if they are no longer economically viable?”
...
Very good news for the atmosphere, and Russian gas exports. If Poland insists on eschewing the clean burning gas that the rest of the EU uses, perhaps the others will place tariffs on nations that deliberately choose to pollute, even those within the free trade zone.
Boycott may be the path for the rest of us.
Terry
Poland and Greece did not due to their coal resources and bad economies. They would have to import all the gas. A lot of the new western European gas could be LNG. Single source and dependence (Russian) is too risky.
Poland and Greece did not due to their coal resources and bad economies. They would have to import all the gas. A lot of the new western European gas could be LNG. Single source and dependence (Russian) is too risky.
Greece is in financial hot water, but Poland's stand is a politically motivated one.
Poland isn't advocating the use of LNG, they want to burn coal. Perhaps a very heavy carbon penalty will persuade them to clean up their act.
Those that choose to pay the penalty that LNG costs entail are at least paying to play, unlike those that expect a free ride while destroying the atmosphere for all of us.
I think everyone here recognizes the environmental costs of coal, as well as the environmental damage done by fracked gas, which is the source of American produced LNG.
Let's not give anyone a free pass because of their politics - dirty fuel is dirty fuel, and should be phased out ASAP.
I for one will try to avoid Polish products until such time as they drop coal.
Terry
Australian politicians are still trying to help finance a huge new coalmine. The link below gives a view on this outrage against just about everything.Thanks
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/brenda-the-civil-disobedience-penguin-v-the-adani-mine-democracy-is-fatally-compromised (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/brenda-the-civil-disobedience-penguin-v-the-adani-mine-democracy-is-fatally-compromised)
First of all... who said American LNG ? But anyway... Qatar would probably be the largest source. I think Italy already has a couple of terminals already. ..
Irony alert! ;DMuseums are for dead things, I think solar power is quite fitting. :)
Kentucky Coal Mining Museum converts to solar power
http://www.wymt.com/content/news/Kentucky-Coal-Mining-Museum-converts-to-solar-power-418430563.html (http://www.wymt.com/content/news/Kentucky-Coal-Mining-Museum-converts-to-solar-power-418430563.html)
A controversial coal mining project in Alaska worth more than $600 million has been abandoned by its developers, underscoring the uphill battle President Donald Trump will face in fulfilling his promise to bring coal mining jobs back to America.https://news.vice.com/story/chuitna-coal-mine-scrapped-in-alaska-after-no-one-would-invest-in-it
PacRim Coal LP, the developer behind the Chuitna Coal Project, was in the later stages of the state and federal mine permitting process to develop coal deposits 45 miles southwest of Anchorage. The firm planned to ship the coal to South Korea, Japan, and China.
But PacRim has suspended all permitting activities and will no longer pursue the project after failing to find an investment partner in the venture, an Alaskan state official confirmed to VICE News.
...
2016 graphs... China is not shutting down coal..they have scrapped plans to build new ones. But the will debottleneck existing ones...First of all... who said American LNG ? But anyway... Qatar would probably be the largest source. I think Italy already has a couple of terminals already. ..
IIRC there is at least one port in the Balkans, but it, and it's sponsoring country are in serious financial trouble since they expected neighboring countries to buy their reconstituted gas to help them meet their minimums, The neighbors apparently spoke of solidarity, but wouldn't pay the huge markup over piped in Russian gas.
America is already the world's primary source for LPG with many more facilities being built, or on the drawing board.
http://www.lngworldshipping.com/news/view,us-builds-terminals-to-boost-lpg-exports_40846.htm (http://www.lngworldshipping.com/news/view,us-builds-terminals-to-boost-lpg-exports_40846.htm)
And the first to win an export permit for fracked American gas way back in 2012 was a company 70% owned by Qatar!
http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/qatar-exxon-venture-wins-first-u-s-lng-export-permit (http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/qatar-exxon-venture-wins-first-u-s-lng-export-permit)
As Americas fracked gas is marketed around the world domestic prices will jump, but international conglomerates will flourish.
Ain't life wonderful?
Terry
Edit:
I believe that China has been shutting down already completed coal burning facilities, suggesting your graphs may be out of date.
Even the smallest of symbolic details can't escape the changes of life in Trump's America. The government agency responsible for overseeing a staggering 258 million acres of land, including ecologically vital conservation areas, has changed the image on its homepage from a scenic park vista to a massive, tall pile of coal.http://mashable.com/2017/04/06/interior-department-changes-webpage-coal-pile/ (http://mashable.com/2017/04/06/interior-department-changes-webpage-coal-pile/)
The website change, which happened in the past 24 hours, is in keeping with the Trump administration's push to drill for oil, natural gas, and minerals on public lands.
...
Thought at first this was a joke. But, no!
U.S. Interior Dept. changes website from family visiting park to a giant pile of coalQuoteEven the smallest of symbolic details can't escape the changes of life in Trump's America. The government agency responsible for overseeing a staggering 258 million acres of land, including ecologically vital conservation areas, has changed the image on its homepage from a scenic park vista to a massive, tall pile of coal.http://mashable.com/2017/04/06/interior-department-changes-webpage-coal-pile/ (http://mashable.com/2017/04/06/interior-department-changes-webpage-coal-pile/)
The website change, which happened in the past 24 hours, is in keeping with the Trump administration's push to drill for oil, natural gas, and minerals on public lands.
...
...remain in the Paris accord, but soften the U.S. emissions pledge, end payments to United Nations-backed green energy funds, and promote development of low-emissions coal technologies, among other things. ...https://www.axios.com/coal-ceo-to-trump-stay-in-paris-climate-deal-2348023290.html (https://www.axios.com/coal-ceo-to-trump-stay-in-paris-climate-deal-2348023290.html)
Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull met with Indian mining boss Gautam Adani last week over the future of a controversial coal project on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/adani-mine-army (https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/adani-mine-army)
When Adani met with Turnbull last week, the mining boss tweeted this picture which showed the men with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
But when the replies to the tweet started rolling in, it was clear that several were pushing a very specific talking point. ...
Coal is pretty much dead in the UK
Through a 50% jump in natural gas usage in 2016. Coal supplies less than 10% of electricity. Wind stalled in 2016, but there were increases in solar and biomass (although a lot of controversy over burning wood pellets from US forests).
https://theconversation.com/the-year-coal-collapsed-2016-was-a-turning-point-for-britains-electricity-70877
Burning biomass does not de-sequester fossil fuel carbon. As long as we have a good replant process we should be able to burn some biofuel without hurting ourselves too much.
Much less hurt than burning coal.
And I think we tend to overlook the carbon that trees and other plants do sequester in their root systems. A tree can have as much mass below ground as above. If we cut off the top for fuel we're only taking half of what that tree has pulled out of the atmosphere. It could be that by harvesting mature trees and replanting in their place we actually get more carbon underground than leaving the tree to stand then eventually die and rot, releasing its above ground carbon.
Long run we probably ought not plan on making biomass from trees a major part of our fuel system. But during the transition it's probably better to burn biomass than coal.
It took half a century for an acorn to grow into the 20-meter-tall oak tree standing here in a North Carolina hardwood forest near the banks of the Northeast Cape Fear River. But it takes just seconds to turn the oak into fuel for the furnace of a European power plant.
"It basically tells the Congo and Indonesia and every other forested country in the world: ‘If you cut down your forests and use them for energy, not only is that not bad, it's good,’" says Tim Searchinger, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C., who has studied the carbon impacts of wood energy.
Oak trees in North Carolina are heading for a U.K. power plant largely because of a single number: zero. That's the amount of CO2 that European power plants can claim they emit when burning wood. It's not true, of course, and in some cases wood-burning furnaces actually puff more CO2 from their smokestacks per unit of electricity produced than those burning coal or natural gas. (In part, that's because wood can have a higher water content than other fuels, and some of its energy goes to boiling off the water.) But under the European Union's ambitious 2009 plan to produce 20% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020, regulators endorsed an earlier decision to designate wood as a carbon-neutral fuel for the purposes of emissions accounting.
In response, some countries—including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands—have built new wood-fired plants or converted coal-fired plants to wood. The United Kingdom has been one of the most enthusiastic, with the government providing subsidies for wood pellets that make them competitive with fossil fuels. At the country's largest power station, a 4000-megawatt behemoth in North Yorkshire, owner Drax Group has converted half of the furnaces to burn wood pellets.
U.S. exports, nearly all from the southeast, grew from zero in 2005 to more than 6.5 million metric tons in 2016, according to Forisk Consulting, a firm in Athens, Georgia. Pellet exports are expected to grow to 9 million metric tons by 2021.
COAL. Not biomass and forests. So I will not reply on this thread. What self-discipline Sir Governor Neven ?
NG Control Room @ NGControlRoom
National Grid can confirm that for the past 24 hours, it has supplied GB’s electricity demand without the need for #coal generation.
Javier BlasVerified account
Javier Blas Retweeted NG Control Room
CONFIRMED: UK goes for a full day without burning #coal to generate #electricity for first time in 135 years #climatechange #renewables
Friday was Britain’s first ever working day without coal power since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Grid.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/21/britain-set-for-first-coal-free-day-since-the-industrial-revolution (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/21/britain-set-for-first-coal-free-day-since-the-industrial-revolution)
The control room tweeted the milestone on Friday. It is the first continuous 24-hour coal-free period for Britain since use of the fossil fuel began. West Burton 1 power station, the only coal-fired plant that had been up and running, went offline on Thursday....
An Eastern Kentucky coal mining company plans to build what could become the state's largest solar farm on a reclaimed mountaintop strip mine, promising jobs for displaced coal miners.http://www.courier-journal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2017/04/18/coal-company-plans-huge-solar-farm-strip-mine/100597672/ (http://www.courier-journal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2017/04/18/coal-company-plans-huge-solar-farm-strip-mine/100597672/)
...
"I grew up with coal," said Ryan Johns, an executive with Berkeley, an Eastern Kentucky coal company. "Our company has been in the coal business for 30 years. We are not looking at this as trying to replace coal, but we have already extracted the coal from this area." He said it's just an extension of using that land to produce energy for the nation while putting out of work coal miners back to work.
...
The Thar coalfield is located in Thar Desert, Tharparkar District of Sindh province in Pakistan. The deposits - 16th largest coal reserves in the world,
May 15 South Korea will temporarily shut down 10 coal-fired power plants that are over 30 years old in June to mitigate air pollution, the office of President Moon Jae-in said in a statement on Monday.http://uk.reuters.com/article/southkorea-politics-energy-idUKL4N1IH13D (http://uk.reuters.com/article/southkorea-politics-energy-idUKL4N1IH13D)
The measure comes as coal-fired power plants are being criticised for contributing to deteriorating air quality in South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy.
Amid these concerns, new President Moon vowed during his election campaign to close the old coal power plants and review a plan to add coal power generation. Instead he advocated increasing the share of renewables to produce more clean energy.
Following through on the promise to reduce coal-fired generation, the presidential office, formally called the Blue House, said that it will temporarily suspend operations of the older coal power plants next month for one month.
The Blue House also said it will shut the older coal plants again in 2018 from March to June and, furthermore, wants to close all of the old coal plants within Moon's presidency which ends in May 2022.
In July last year, South Korea's energy ministry announced a plan to close the 10 old coal-fired power plants by 2025 in order to lower its coal power reliance and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
...
Well, promoters in Plaquemines Parish near by where I live have been wanting to build a coal export terminal on the banks of the Mississippi. I joined with local protesters on this issue.... ....but WOW it looks like maybe demand is diminishing and I will have no coal trains going by my house after all. Wouldn't that be nice. Still awaiting final developments.
Miners are used to working in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions.
Many are highly skilled engineers, mechanics, electricians et al.
All know how to work with (often highly sophisticated) mechanised systems.
What do we do when an industry like coal is in terminal decline ? We throw the work-force on the scrap heap.
Why? Because the legislators and mine owners in places like West Virginia (and in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s) are too damn thick and too damn greedy to realise that it is the people who are the most valuable asset.
The sun shines and the wind blows in West Virginia. The workforce is there. Everything you need (with a bit of new skills training) to build a renewable energy industry is there. Will it happen? probably not with the idiots from the POTUS down in charge.
ps: One mine owner in West Virginia is building a solar farm on a mountaintop scraped flat for mining.
Miners are used to working in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions.The bolded is certainly a ray of hope. As you pointed out, the difference in skill sets between a coal miner and a solar or wind installer or technician is not an insurmountable barrier. A week of training, then a few months of mentoring on the job should produce a journeyman tech that can make money for himself and his employer.
Many are highly skilled engineers, mechanics, electricians et al.
All know how to work with (often highly sophisticated) mechanised systems.
What do we do when an industry like coal is in terminal decline ? We throw the work-force on the scrap heap.
Why? Because the legislators and mine owners in places like West Virginia (and in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s) are too damn thick and too damn greedy to realise that it is the people who are the most valuable asset.
The sun shines and the wind blows in West Virginia. The workforce is there. Everything you need (with a bit of new skills training) to build a renewable energy industry is there. Will it happen? probably not with the idiots from the POTUS down in charge.
ps: One mine owner in West Virginia is building a solar farm on a mountaintop scraped flat for mining.
Coal jobs pay more than wind and solar jobs. Plus most coal miners live close to the mine and their families have lived there for generations. Many of those people don't want to go elsewhere for work.
For the most part their houses and land are worthless. There's no one to buy them out if they want to leave.
Other than the odd flat-topped mountain (Thanks, Mr. Peabody) there aren't a lot of place that are good for large solar. And there aren't big transmission lines.
These are basically parts of the US that people will abandon over the next 50 or so years. Young people with ambition already leave. As time goes along there will be no infrastructure. No grocery stores, no health facilities, .... The last few old folks will die in place or get moved out to a nursing home by their kids who no longer live there. Forests will reclaim the area.
A future where we all live in megacities totally divorced from the natural world may well be where the powers that be are pushing us.
...
Other than the odd flat-topped mountain (Thanks, Mr. Peabody) there aren't a lot of place that are good for large solar. And there aren't big transmission lines.
...
Other than the odd flat-topped mountain (Thanks, Mr. Peabody) there aren't a lot of place that are good for large solar. And there aren't big transmission lines.
Solar farms don't have to be flat. And all those coal-fired power plants we're closing have transmission lines, ready to be tapped into.
...https://thinkprogress.org/coal-paris-the-market-and-climate-change-7a7605431251
But, according to the Reuters report, the coal companies consulted by the administration aren’t merely looking to influence domestic policy — they want to ensure coal projects receive multilateral funding, ostensibly through international bodies of investment like the Green Climate Fund or the World Bank. And in that case, the Trump administration’s own policies could be damning.
“This is an administration that, if they stay in [the agreement], is going to be staying in because predominantly they can’t take the blowback internationally.”
In its so-called ‘skinny budget’ released in March, the Trump administration called for ending payments to both the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds. Developed countries pay into those funds, which in turn go toward helping developing countries adapt to and mitigate climate change. But if the United States does not participate in either fund, Light says, it will be extremely difficult for the U.S. or its coal coal companies to exert any influence over which projects those funds choose to support.
“Coal companies have got to be taking into consideration that U.S. influence is going to completely plummet because of the administration’s intention to stop funding these funds,” he said.
Moreover, projects like carbon capture and storage facilities are untested and expensive, making them unappealing to investors. A carbon capture and storage plant in DeKalb, Mississippi — which was billed as a model for how future coal plants could help reduce emissions and slow climate change — is currently more than $4 billion dollars over its initial budget and still not operational.....
...http://reneweconomy.com.au/coal-plants-failed-in-queensland-heatwave-on-day-of-record-demand-85223/ (http://reneweconomy.com.au/coal-plants-failed-in-queensland-heatwave-on-day-of-record-demand-85223/)
The events of the past summer has caused one of the biggest network owners to complain about the reliability of fossil fuel generation. Spark Infrastructure, which owns networks in Victoria and South Australia, said gas generators were proving unable to deliver reliable power at times of peak demand.
It also accused them of charging excessive prices for both their retail operations and their generation. This follows questions about the reliability of fossil fuel generators and their ability to deliver the grid security they are paid handsomely to do.
AEMO has admitted that some legacy coal and gas generators have no performance standards, and it may not even know what their control settings are. A point underlined by Tom Butler, in his piece today, which analyses numerous issues with governor controls and other issues, and by other submissions which point to system weakness from fossil fuel generation.
The AER has been chronicling all sorts of occasions when coal and gas generation has been lost due to the heat. Apart from the events on February 6, February 10, February 12 and March 3, mentioned above, more capacity was lost in January, mostly the result of “heat” issues that forced coal and gas generators across the state to lower capacity.
On Friday, January 13, for instance, between 600MW and 670MW of coal and gas capacity suddenly became “unavailable” due to “plant limitations, some of which related to the high temperature.”
And, of course, there was the February 8 incident in South Australia, when 90,000 people lost power for up to 45 minutes when one major gas unit sat idle while the lights went out, and as several other gas units failed in the heat.
...
A heavy maintenance superintendent for a surface coal mine in Elgin, Texas, Evans was responsible for figuring out how to patch or replace outdated parts of a field delivery system that ferried coal from the mine to a plant. Each minute of downtime could cost the company as much as $170.http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/17/technology/coal-miner-data-miner/index.html (http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/17/technology/coal-miner-data-miner/index.html)
Now the third-generation coal miner gets her adrenaline rush sitting indoors on a soft swivel chair, fixing code on a computer screen. The 33-year-old is a data scientist currently doing a paid residency at Galvanize in Austin....
...https://qz.com/988271/donald-trumps-coal-promise-us-coal-fired-plants-forced-to-announce-closures-in-2017-alone-could-power-all-of-qatar/
Trump’s coal magic has worked but not in the way Gillette had hoped. In April, US coal production was up 17% compared to a year ago. At the same time, however, coal mining jobs were down 8% (about 6,000 jobs).
This year alone eight coal power plants have announced closures. Many are shutting decades before their expiry date. The closures total 9.4 GW of lost electricity generating capacity, which is more than what all of Qatar can produce today.
...
Some other power companies haven’t announced closures, but are moving in that direction. For instance, DTE Energy, Michigan’s biggest power supplier, announced last week that it will retire all its coal-fired plants by 2050, moving to natural gas and wind.
The most common reason for an early closure is that the plants are no longer economically viable. The shale gas boom has made natural gas very cheap—cleaner and more efficient fossil fuel. The rate per kilowatt-hour offered by coal power plants is increasingly being beaten by natural gas or even renewables like wind and solar.
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Goldwind Americas, an arm of a leading wind-turbine manufacturer based in China, has been expanding its business in the United States. It has been careful to seek out local, American workers for permanent jobs on the wind farms it supplies.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/business/energy-environment/wind-turbine-job-training-wyoming.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/business/energy-environment/wind-turbine-job-training-wyoming.html)
Now it is trying to extend that policy to an unlikely place: Wyoming, which produces more coal than any other state and has hardly welcomed the march of turbines across the country, even imposing a tax on wind-energy generation....
Though India had been expected to be the site of a coal boom, plans for new coal construction totaling nearly 14 GW have been cancelled so far this month.
Analyst Tim Buckley of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis pegged the coal cancellations on record-low solar tariffs of three cents per KW/hr, The Independent reported. Buckley said as of January last year energy analysts predicted such a low price could never be achieved.
That price is lower than the current wholesale coal power price of four cents per KW/hr.
“For the first time solar is cheaper than coal in India and the implications this has for transforming global energy markets is profound,” Buckley said.
“Measures taken by the Indian Government to improve energy efficiency coupled with ambitious renewable energy targets and the plummeting cost of solar has had an impact on existing as well as proposed coal fired power plants, rendering an increasing number as financially unviable. India’s solar tariffs have literally been free falling in recent months.”
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2017/05/india-cancels-plans-for-14-gw-of-coal-due-to-cheap-solar.html (http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2017/05/india-cancels-plans-for-14-gw-of-coal-due-to-cheap-solar.html)
Along with developing sprawling new wind and solar farms, China is investing heavily in the most efficient coal technologies. In fact, new plants under construction in the country are dramatically more efficient than anything currently operating in the U.S....
China is closing down many of its older coal plants. At the same time, China’s operating coal plants must meet a very high efficiency standard by 2020 -- a bar that very few American coal plants can meet.
CAP researchers dug into a wave of Chinese coal plants announced between 2013 to 2016 and found that many of them likely won't get constructed.
"What American observers need to know is that many of those new plants are white elephants that China cannot fully utilize. They represent a blip rather than a trend, and Beijing is already moving to shut down many of these new plants."
Still, the plants currently under construction in China are some of the most efficient in the world. The report found that 90 out of 100 of China’s most efficient coal plants are ultra-supercritical, which means they’re operating at high temperatures of over 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit and pressures of more than 5,000 pounds per square inch.
In contrast, only one of America's 100 most efficient coal plants is ultra-supercritical. The rest are subcritical or supercritical, which operate at much lower temperatures and pressures, and thus are far less efficient.
Chinese citizens are pressuring the government to solve severe air pollution problems, forcing Chinese officials to halt many new plants. Cheap natural gas is a primary reason for coal retirements in the U.S.
China doesn’t have the same type of easily accessible, low-cost domestic natural gas that America does. This makes efficient coal more important to its energy mix in the medium term, conclude the analysts.
"Energy solutions that work well for China will not necessarily work well for the United States. In addition to the massive population disparity, the United States has access to cheap and plentiful shale gas, and China does not. If China is going to reduce emissions substantially, more efficient coal generation has to be part of its equation, at least for the near to medium term. In the United States, investing in next-generation clean coal plants is not a good solution, because natural gas is cheap, plentiful and lower-emitting than all but the most expensive coal-fired power," write the researchers.
The transformation won’t be easy for coal workers. But employment in clean energy will far outpace the decline in coal jobs in China.
According to the report, Beijing expects its coal sector to shed 1.3 million workers between 2016 to 2020. Meanwhile, 13 million new clean energy jobs are slated to be created in China by 2020.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/chinas-coal-fleet-will-soon-be-more-efficient-than-americas (https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/chinas-coal-fleet-will-soon-be-more-efficient-than-americas)
A new jobs training initiative in Wyoming seeks to bridge the gap between diminishing coal employment and booming wind technician jobs.
Goldwind Americas, the local branch of the major Chinese turbine manufacturer, is launching a free jobs training program for what the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks as the fastest-growing job in the U.S. Wind turbine service technician employment is slated to grow 108 percent in the 10 years starting from 2014, with median wages of $52,260 in 2016.
The Goldwind Works program will tackle the demand for skilled turbine repairs alongside another national challenge: the declining fortunes of America's coal miners. The company is building a massive wind farm in a part of Wyoming with a history so linked to the coal industry that it is called Carbon County.
As coal-fired power plants continue to shutter across the country, politicians at the local and federal level are trying increasingly desperate measures to keep the once-dominant fuel afloat.https://thinkprogress.org/coal-subsidies-studies-politicians-977b2381aa3a
In Ohio, legislators have proposed a bill that would permanently subsidize two coal-fired power plants, owned jointly by American Electric Power and other major electricity utilities in the state. The subsidies would guarantee income for the power plants, even when the cost of electricity was less than the cost of operating the plants.
Money from the subsidies would come directly from consumers, who would be charged higher rates to pay the plants’ guaranteed income. If the plants became profitable, the customers would receive a credit back for the amount that they paid.
The move has prompted criticism from environmental groups, which accuse politicians of forcing consumers to bear the costs of outdated technology.
...
Desperate....
State lawmakers want the public to pay to prop up coal
Lawmakers in Ohio are proposing to subsidize permanently two coal-fired plants.QuoteAs coal-fired power plants continue to shutter across the country, politicians at the local and federal level are trying increasingly desperate measures to keep the once-dominant fuel afloat.https://thinkprogress.org/coal-subsidies-studies-politicians-977b2381aa3a (https://thinkprogress.org/coal-subsidies-studies-politicians-977b2381aa3a)
In Ohio, legislators have proposed a bill that would permanently subsidize two coal-fired power plants, owned jointly by American Electric Power and other major electricity utilities in the state. The subsidies would guarantee income for the power plants, even when the cost of electricity was less than the cost of operating the plants.
Money from the subsidies would come directly from consumers, who would be charged higher rates to pay the plants’ guaranteed income. If the plants became profitable, the customers would receive a credit back for the amount that they paid.
The move has prompted criticism from environmental groups, which accuse politicians of forcing consumers to bear the costs of outdated technology.
...
As more companies leave Ohio in search of cleaner and cheaper energy.
Won't they ever learn?
Within a couple of decades people and businesses could come flocking back as the realities of sea level rise, high temperatures/drought and crazy weather make themselves increasingly felt in the south.
Much safer in Ohio, surrounded the Great Lakes with the rainfall moving northwards and away from the coasts. Perhaps a great long-term investment opportunity?
The Country Women’s Association has passed a motion calling for a halt to any further “unconventional gas exploration” in NSW - a ban on Coal Seam Gas.http://www.theland.com.au/story/4686569/coal-seam-gas-cwa-votes-to-ban-it/ (http://www.theland.com.au/story/4686569/coal-seam-gas-cwa-votes-to-ban-it/)
Prospects for the controversial Adani coal mine have dimmed further after the Queensland government said it wanted no role in any federal loan to support the project.http://www.smh.com.au/environment/adanis-coal-mine-dealt-fresh-blow-as-queensland-shunts-1-billion-rail-loan-role-20170527-gweiuj.html (http://www.smh.com.au/environment/adanis-coal-mine-dealt-fresh-blow-as-queensland-shunts-1-billion-rail-loan-role-20170527-gweiuj.html)
In a statement on Saturday, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said that "consistent with our election commitments, cabinet has determined that any [Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility] loan needs to be between the federal government and Adani".
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Vietnam makes a big push for coal, while pledging to curb emissions – “If the entire region implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished”
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/05/vietnam-makes-big-push-for-coal-while.html?m=1 (http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/05/vietnam-makes-big-push-for-coal-while.html?m=1)
Like many 57-year-olds, the Mercer Generation Station can still do its job, which is producing electricity from Appalachian coal for a public hungry for power. But this former workhorse of the grid has been eclipsed by a new generation of power plants, and on Thursday it will shut down for good.http://www.philly.com/philly/business/energy/pseg-shuts-down-its-last-n-j-coal-plants-its-just-economics-20170530.html (http://www.philly.com/philly/business/energy/pseg-shuts-down-its-last-n-j-coal-plants-its-just-economics-20170530.html)
Public Service Enterprise Group of Newark, N.J., announced in October that it would shut down Mercer and the Hudson Generation Station on June 1, retiring its two remaining coal-fired power plants in New Jersey, casualties of a sustained low-price environment brought on by inexpensive natural gas.
The closures take place just six years after the company’s power-generation subsidiary, PSEG Power, completed more than $1 billion in upgrades to environmental controls at the two sites to comply with new federal emissions standards. Though the company correctly anticipated stricter environmental regulations, it did not foresee the tumble in energy prices brought on by shale gas.
“We made a bet on high gas prices,” Ralph Izzo, PSEG’s chief executive, said in an interview last week. “We got that wrong.” The company took a loss of $555 million last year on the plant closures and anticipates an additional non-cash write-off of up to $960 million in 2017.
Environmentalists claimed credit for forcing the two coal plants to close, but PSEG says it was really fracking that undermined them. “The way the market works, the economics don’t work,” Bill Thompson, PSEG Power’s senior director of operations, said during a Mercer plant tour last week. “They’re not getting shut down for equipment conditions. It’s just economics.”
...
Ten years ago, the plant ran nearly every day, producing more than three million megawatt hours of electricity, according to PSEG Power. In 2016, Mercer produced a mere 1,867 megawatt hours. Last year, it operated only two days in January, when the regional power-grid operator, PJM Interconnection, called on it to meet high winter demand. The generation station has been inactive for 17 months.
...
PSEG Power still operates the Bridgeport Harbor plant in Connecticut, which is scheduled to be retired in 2021 and replaced by a gas plant. It also has ownership stakes in the Keystone and Connemaugh coal plants in Western Pennsylvania, which are built near mines and operate with high efficiency. But it sees no growth in coal.
“We won’t be investing in new coal,” Izzo said.
At Mercer, PSEG’s environmental investments are the main features of the tour. It added precipitators in 1995 to reduce soot emissions, and the first of three units to reduce nitrogen oxides, which contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog. In 2004, it added a $100 million selective catalytic reduction unit to cut nitrogen oxides, and in 2007 a $10 million carbon-injection unit to reduce mercury. In 2010, it spent $500 million to build a baghouse and scrubber to control sulfur, mercury and particulates.
“They’re very clean plants and not because they don’t run,” Izzo said. The emissions-control features now occupy two times more land on Mercer’s 114-acre site than the original power plant.
...
U.S.: PSEG shuts down its last coal plants in New Jersey: `It's just economics'QuoteLike many 57-year-olds, the Mercer Generation Station can still do its job, which is producing electricity from Appalachian coal for a public hungry for power. But this former workhorse of the grid has been eclipsed by a new generation of power plants, and on Thursday it will shut down for good.http://www.philly.com/philly/business/energy/pseg-shuts-down-its-last-n-j-coal-plants-its-just-economics-20170530.html (http://www.philly.com/philly/business/energy/pseg-shuts-down-its-last-n-j-coal-plants-its-just-economics-20170530.html)
Public Service Enterprise Group of Newark, N.J., announced in October that it would shut down Mercer and the Hudson Generation Station on June 1, retiring its two remaining coal-fired power plants in New Jersey, casualties of a sustained low-price environment brought on by inexpensive natural gas.
The closures take place just six years after the company’s power-generation subsidiary, PSEG Power, completed more than $1 billion in upgrades to environmental controls at the two sites to comply with new federal emissions standards. Though the company correctly anticipated stricter environmental regulations, it did not foresee the tumble in energy prices brought on by shale gas.
“We made a bet on high gas prices,” Ralph Izzo, PSEG’s chief executive, said in an interview last week. “We got that wrong.” The company took a loss of $555 million last year on the plant closures and anticipates an additional non-cash write-off of up to $960 million in 2017.
Environmentalists claimed credit for forcing the two coal plants to close, but PSEG says it was really fracking that undermined them. “The way the market works, the economics don’t work,” Bill Thompson, PSEG Power’s senior director of operations, said during a Mercer plant tour last week. “They’re not getting shut down for equipment conditions. It’s just economics.”
...
Ten years ago, the plant ran nearly every day, producing more than three million megawatt hours of electricity, according to PSEG Power. In 2016, Mercer produced a mere 1,867 megawatt hours. Last year, it operated only two days in January, when the regional power-grid operator, PJM Interconnection, called on it to meet high winter demand. The generation station has been inactive for 17 months.
...
PSEG Power still operates the Bridgeport Harbor plant in Connecticut, which is scheduled to be retired in 2021 and replaced by a gas plant. It also has ownership stakes in the Keystone and Connemaugh coal plants in Western Pennsylvania, which are built near mines and operate with high efficiency. But it sees no growth in coal.
“We won’t be investing in new coal,” Izzo said.
At Mercer, PSEG’s environmental investments are the main features of the tour. It added precipitators in 1995 to reduce soot emissions, and the first of three units to reduce nitrogen oxides, which contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog. In 2004, it added a $100 million selective catalytic reduction unit to cut nitrogen oxides, and in 2007 a $10 million carbon-injection unit to reduce mercury. In 2010, it spent $500 million to build a baghouse and scrubber to control sulfur, mercury and particulates.
“They’re very clean plants and not because they don’t run,” Izzo said. The emissions-control features now occupy two times more land on Mercer’s 114-acre site than the original power plant.
...
The South Korean capital, Seoul, is among the world’s most polluted cities, so it’s no surprise that air pollution was one of the key campaign issues for the newly elected president, Moon Jae-in.https://qz.com/983626/moon-jae-in-south-koreas-new-president-is-shutting-down-10-big-coal-power-plants-in-his-first-week-in-office/
That’s why, on his fifth day in power, Moon has announced that the country will temporarily shutter 10 coal power plants now and will shut them down completely within his five-year term. The move should bring respite from the choking air pollution, but it raises questions about South Korea’s energy security.
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Nuclear power’s contribution to South Korea’s mix has fallen from 40% to 30% over the last 10 years, as plants have been decommissioned over safety issues. To make up for the fall, the contribution of coal has shot up to 40%.... The country operates 53 coal-power plants, and plans to build another 20 in the next five years.
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SOMERSET, Mass. (AP) — New England's largest — and one of its last — coal-fired power plants was shutting down permanently Wednesday.https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/massachusetts/articles/2017-05-31/new-englands-last-big-coal-plant-powering-down (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/massachusetts/articles/2017-05-31/new-englands-last-big-coal-plant-powering-down)
The Brayton Point Power Station was scheduled to power down before a midnight Thursday deadline, culminating a decades-long shift from coal, oil and nuclear energy to lower-cost natural gas.
The plant has burned coal since 1963 along Mount Hope Bay in Somerset, near the Rhode Island border. It has generated controversy for almost as long, with residents, fishermen and environmentalists decrying the damage that its cooling canals — nicknamed "killing canals" by activists in the 1970s — caused to fisheries.
The coal plant's final hours came on the same day that President Donald Trump's administration said he expects to withdraw the United States from a landmark global climate agreement. The Republican president has moved to delay or roll back federal regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions while pledging to revive long-struggling U.S. coal mines.
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Gautam Adani said Tuesday that he had given the "green light" to his firm's $12 billion coal project in Australia's northeastern Queensland state.http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/news/economy/coal-mine-australia-india-adani/index.html (http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/news/economy/coal-mine-australia-india-adani/index.html)
"This is the largest single investment by an Indian corporation in Australia, and I believe others will follow with investments and trade deals," Adani said in a statement.
The Adani Group is also building a 240-mile railway line and an airstrip at the mine, which it says will create at least 10,000 new jobs.
Environmental groups and many politicians are bitterly opposed to the project, saying it will lead to the destruction of the environment. Greenpeace Australia described it as a "death sentence" for the Great Barrier Reef.
"The people of Australia have overwhelmingly rejected this toxic project," Greenpeace campaigner Nikola Casule said in a statement on Tuesday. "The age of coal is dead and we need real leadership to ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels."
India, where Adani is planning to ship most of the Queensland coal, is trying to make that transition despite still relying on coal for 60% of its power. The Indian government is targeting a tenfold increase in solar energy capacity by 2022, and solar power is now cheaper than electricity from coal fired power stations.
"It doesn't make sense to be planning huge long-term investments in coal when we have surplus power production and rapidly falling cost of renewable power," Vinay Rustagi, managing director of energy consultancy Bridge to India, told CNNMoney. "It is hard to see any merit in this news from an Indian perspective."
Adani doesn't see it that way. He says the project will relieve "energy poverty in India," where 300 million people still aren't connected to the electricity grid....
U.S. demand for coal fell by 33.4 million tons of oil equivalent last year to 358.4 million, the biggest decline in the world in absolute terms, BP data show.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/coal-s-era-starts-to-wane-as-world-shifts-to-cleaner-energy (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/coal-s-era-starts-to-wane-as-world-shifts-to-cleaner-energy)
Global consumption dropped 1.7 percent last year compared with an average 1.9 percent yearly increase from 2005 to 2015, according to BP. China, which accounted for about half of the coal burned in the world, used 1.6 percent less of the fuel, compared with an average 3.7 percent annual expansion in the 11 preceding years.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — One year ago, Penn State’s University Park campus officially switched from coal to natural gas to power and heat the buildings on campus. The “Last Day of Coal” celebration in March of 2016, which beckoned in a new era for Penn State, also recognized the major role coal played in the history of the University. ...http://news.psu.edu/story/460837/2017/04/17/campus-life/one-year-later-reflecting-penn-state’s-switch-coal-natural-gas (http://news.psu.edu/story/460837/2017/04/17/campus-life/one-year-later-reflecting-penn-state’s-switch-coal-natural-gas)
As the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy reveals, global demand for coal has fallen for the second year in a row. ...http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/the-global-coal-boom-finally-seems-to-be-winding-down.html (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/the-global-coal-boom-finally-seems-to-be-winding-down.html)
This year’s forecast from BNEF sees solar energy costs dropping a further 66% by 2040, and onshore wind by 47%