There are spots of tarnish on King Coal's crown ... but that doesn't mean the dirty fuel will lose its seat on the energy throne anytime soon.
November 28, 2010 at 11:05AM by Jim DiPeso
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environ...oal-facts-1128
There is good news and bad news this Thanksgiving weekend on the climate stewardship front.
Bad news first. Despite the economic slowdown, the atmosphere's greenhouse gas concentration rose in 2009, due in large part to the coal-stoked economic growth in China and India, home to 40 percent of humanity. Some 92 percent of the growth in coal-fired emissions during 2007-2009 was a result of coal burning in China and India.
It has to be some sort of cosmic joke that two of the world's fastest growing economies also hold an estimated 21 percent of the world's dirtiest fuel. Must be the same prankster who put more than half of the world's proven oil reserves beneath the sands of the world's most geopolitically unstable region.
Anyway…China's coal hunger is driving exports from coal-mongers in Australia, South Africa, and the U.S. - where a battle is brewing over a proposed coal loading port on the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon.
The China/India coal binge will be grist for the mill of can't-do politicians who insist that the U.S. cannot stem the rise of greenhouse gas emissions and shouldn't try.
Oh, but it can, and here's the good news to ponder while downing another turkey sandwich and another slice of leftover pumpkin pie. A new report from Deutsche Bank, an investment house, points out that mortality is creeping up on many of the coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
Nearly half of the nation's coal-fired generating capacity is made up of aging, inefficient plants, some more than 60 years old. If utilities can be confident that the price of gas won't e up and down with abandon, and if the specter of Congress - some day, by and by - putting a price on carbon enters into their calculus, then utilities looking to replace geezer coal plants might turn to gas, renewables, and nuclear, which could drive down coal's share of U.S. electricity generation by more than half.
Here's the paydirt conclusion: "The U.S. is capable of almost halving its CO2 emissions by 2030 (up to 44 percent) through a secure and reliable fuel mix that is based on known technology that can easily be deployed at reasonable cost." Without a price on carbon.
Of course, a number of things would have to go right for this happy scenario to play out.
> Utilities would have to be convinced that gas is a safer economic bet than coal for replacing their old coal beaters.
> The Environmental Protection Agency would have to implement pending air quality regulations - e.g. mercury limits - without political interference from congressmen putting dollars and cents above public health.
> Gas producers tapping shale deposits would have to avoid mucking up drinking water aquifers and stirring up implacable opposition from communities in the shale gas belts.
> Energy efficiency would have to continue improving so as to tamp down demand growth.
> And renewables and nuclear would need practical solutions to their issues; renewables with integrating a high level of on-again, off-again resources into the grid, nukes with their ac ulating quan ies of spent fuel all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Still, a promising take-home message is that market dynamics might go a long way toward lowering U.S. emissions, even if congressmen are content to spend their time and salaries over the next several years playing schoolyard political games.
And there's one more thing to ponder. Not everyone is buying it, but there are a few voices popping up from the wilderness arguing that conventional estimates of coal reserves overstate the quan y and heat content of coal that's still in the ground, which they say calls into question the assertion that coal will be cheap and abundant for decades to come.
China is clearly worried that its demand is outrunning its domestic supply; a recent Wall Street Journal article detailed talk in Beijing of capping domestic output, fretting over supply bottlenecks, and concerns about the lower quality of coal in frontier mining regions compared to older coal production regions that face depletion.
There are spots of tarnish emerging on King Coal's crown. As the end approaches for 2010, a thoroughly disappointing year for climate stewardship, the signs that all might not be well for dirty coal bear watching.
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By the by, the Deutsch Bank report referenced above can be found here:
http://www.dbcca.com/dbcca/EN/_media...esExecSumm.pdf
They expect that solar/wind will go from 2% of the nation's power to 14% by 2030.There are 60 gigawatts (GW) of coal plants that are over 60 years old and are expected to be retired by 2020. On top of that, there is a further 92 GW of coal plants over 45 years old, inefficient and ripe for retirements. Collectively this represents about 45 percent of total current coal capacity.
This is more than a sevenfold increase in capacity, given growth of demand that will take place.
My smart retirement money will be funneled into things that leverage on this.
I have never said, that our energy supply will go completely renewable or should in my life time, but if you want to make some solid money, invest on the ground floor in a sector poised for lots of growth. Sounds obvious, but the hard part is finding parts of the economy with that kind of growth potential.
I really have no problem with coal
IF
it were mined, burned, and disposed of in the cleanest, safest possible ways.
Since BigCoal in one the biggest states in UCA, won't happen.
BigCoal's argument would be that electricity would be too expensive if coal was done harmlessly. And spoiled, fat assed, lazy Americans never want to pay for anything, especially since the VRWC is already diminishing their wealth and future.
I actually agree with the first part.
The thing that really struck me was the blurb in the Deutsche Bank report about how many coal plants are due to retire or obsolesce in the next few years.
Utilities are going to be faced with some choices that will tie them into a form of energy for 30+ years, when they have to decide what kinds of energy to replace those plants with.
Given that surely some of them are at least mildly aware of Chinese/Indian consumption of coal, and depletion factors, I really see increases in solar/wind as not only possible, but pretty probable.
This and natural gas production will go a long way towards cutting CO2 emissions in the US through sheer market forces, as noted in the OP.
"natural gas production"
.... extraction is ing up virgin, pure groundwater everywhere. The only reason right-winger and gascos says it isn't is that there is, intentionally, no real inspection and testing in the first place. ie, nobody's looking for the pollution.
Affected citizens are the ones "inspecting" their own water and finding it polluted, flammable, ruined.
Fracking, when done right, is done at very deep depths, below normal water tables.
*when done right*. Given the recent boom in gas production, I have little doubt that there are a LOT of corners and shortcuts being taken.
On that line, I want companies that use the practice to fork over a % of the revenue into a sinking fund for pollution clean up.
If we had access to all the coal Santa has left in RandomLie's stockings over the years we wouldn't have to mine anymore.
"practice to fork over a % of the revenue"
the penalties NEVER cover the cost of cleanup.
and MMS never collects the already-too-low royalties.
oilco/gasco/coalco the nation,and taxpayers get stuck with the diseases and the cleanup.
UCA, foreever!
Nah, we could just take the bull you post, and use it for methane production.
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