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Denmark Plans To Be Coal-Free In 10 Years

Posted by samzenpus on from the cleaning-the-system dept.

merbs writes "Earlier this year, Denmark's leadership announced that the nation would run entirely on renewable power by 2050. Wind, solar, and biomass would be ramped up while coal and gas are phased out. Now Denmark has gone even further, and plans to end coal by 2025.

15 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Breaking the stranglehold of other countries by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Russia has demonstrated that it is unwilling to engage in above-board transactions for their fuel exports. It is in every country's national interest to reduce dependency on imports when they can neither control the supply nor rely on the supplier to operate as a business rather than as a belligerent nation. If anything, Russia's recent behavior has reinforced this for Europe, and given the Europeans incentive to get off of Russia's exports.

    It's a shame that Denmark can't get off of natural gas sooner than coal.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Breaking the stranglehold of other countries by stephanruby · · Score: 5, Informative

      Russia has demonstrated that it is unwilling to engage in above-board transactions for their fuel exports.

      [...]

      It's a shame that Denmark can't get off of natural gas sooner than coal.

      Thanks to the North Sea, Denmark is a net exporter of oil and natural gas. It's actually the coal they need to import. And compared to natural gas, it's actually the coal that is considerably dirtier. I personally don't see anything wrong with their plan. Few countries are in the position they're in, they will even benefit from what's going on with Russia right now.

    2. Re:Breaking the stranglehold of other countries by presidenteloco · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or, you could use grid-scale energy storage, combined with low-loss HVDC long-distance transmission. HDVC lines can be over 2000km long, bigger than an individual weather system, so a network of them can redistribute intermittent wind and solar output effectively.

      --

      Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
    3. Re:Breaking the stranglehold of other countries by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Renewable" energy requires natural gas in order to compensate for fluctuating output.

      That is true but not necessarily the way you think. In the long term the idea is to create substitute natural gas (SNG) from excess energy that would otherwise go to waste using hydrogen and CO2 for example with the Sabatier reaction. This is the same process Nasa is planning to use to produce rocket propellant on Mars. It's not a super efficient process but if you can harvest the CO2 from the atmosphere, you can still store energy that would otherwise be wasted and unlike drilling and fracking it's a closed cycle as opposed to a release of sequestered carbon. SNG it has the advantage of enabling you to recycle the existing natural gas distribution infrastructure.

      --
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      -- Henning von Tresckow
    4. Re:Breaking the stranglehold of other countries by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can but that costs many billion dollars.

      So do the alternatives. Coal causes billions of dollars of damage to the environment and people's health. Nuclear costs billions of dollars to build, and in the UK we have to guarantee double the normal rate for the electricity produced during the plant's lifetime. There is a third option, which is spending billions on efficiency improvements.

      No matter what we do we will end up spending that money, so the question is what do we want to spend it on.

      --
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  2. Re:Good idea beyond the "renewable" fad by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Wind is neither very expensive nor environmentally damaging.

    You didn't bother to provide a source but I will: New wind and solar plants generate cheaper low-carbon electricity than the latest nuclear reactors, a study shows, indicating they will lead a global push for green energy. There are lot of different factors that make this claim debatable, but even if wind is still somewhat more than nuclear, it's not "very expensive" which was the point.

  3. Re:This is the future by timeOday · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But as it happens Denmark's per capita energy usage is also less than 1/2 of the US.

    And yes, at least a good chunk of that is actual, honest-to-god lifestyle differences, not just situational.

  4. I don't know what they are doing to burn coal now by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...

    Denmark pays a whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.

    OUCH !!!!!!!

    3.5 times the avg cost in the U.S.

    It really doesn't take much for other energy sources to beat that. Going out on a limb here I suspect renewables could be cheaper by just not being subject to whatever it is they do that makes their current energy sources ridiculously expensive.

  5. Re:So, they will become coal-free? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ah no. I have to say citation needed. Coal demand is increasing not decreasing.

    1990 coal production - 4677mt
    2013 Coal production - 7823mt.

    Coal mines are only shutting if they were borderline operations. Do not confuse closing a mine that is uneconomical at the current price, a price that is the result of a world wide economic down turn, with a longer term move away from coal.

    ref - http://www.smh.com.au/environm...

  6. Re:So, they will become coal-free? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know that it is those miners that allow you to have the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed? Like it or hate it without mining the Australian economy is in trouble in a big way. We have always been a primary industry economy, we either farm it or we dig it up. That is not going to change any time soon, we are in a shitty location to be a manufacturer, too far from anywhere. We do not have the capital or employment structures to be an effective IT startup area (see employee share scheme laws). Our population is too small to be the critical mass needed for some other type of business that I can't think of.

    We are however very very good at mining, oil & gas extraction and processing. You may disagree with doing it. You may think it is raping the planet. But you reap the rewards of that industry living here.

  7. Re:I don't know what they are doing to burn coal n by jopsen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Denmark pays a whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.....3.5 times the avg cost in the U.S.

    Do you even care about the size of your electricity bill... Mine is mainly an annoyance, it's like 10-15 USD / month.

    Also note, very few people in Denmark uses electric heating as you can get hot water from centralized production into your home (not clean only for use in radiators). My parents gets their heating from a power plant 20km away.
    Also buildings have strict isolation requirements, and incandescent bulbs have been banned through out EU (presumably you can still get them, but not through regular retail; I'm not sure).

  8. Re:I don't know what they are doing to burn coal n by KarmaPolice · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...

    Denmark pays a whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.

    OUCH !!!!!!!

    3.5 times the avg cost in the U.S.

    It really doesn't take much for other energy sources to beat that. Going out on a limb here I suspect renewables could be cheaper by just not being subject to whatever it is they do that makes their current energy sources ridiculously expensive.

    As with many things i Denmark, most of this is taxes (approx. 75%). The rest is the actual cost of producing the energy.
    The coal-based plants in Denmark are very efficient and they produce many tons of acid and all sorts of chemicals from the emissions from the plants, before letting it out into the atmosphere.

    As a side-story, the government recently cancelled a very popular funding-arrangment that made it very popular to install a local (6KW) solar plan on your roof. The ones who installed it in time, now have free electricity.

  9. Re:So, they will become coal-free? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Also you share a really big land border with the biggest consumer nation in the world. If you build something good in Canada you can be selling it in the US for the price of a truck shipment.

    If you build something good in Australia it has a really really really long way to go before it can be consumed in the US.

    There is a reason why we produce large quantities or iron ore, copper, bauxite, coal, uranium, lead, zinc, and gold. It is because the primary consumers of those are close by (China and India). Brazil is Australia's biggest competitor in the floating traded iron space and Australia wins a lot of the time because we are physically closer to China.

  10. Re:This is the future by Barsteward · · Score: 5, Informative

    A lot of the Scandinavian housing stock is highly insulated so less energy is used to heat it, keep it warm or cool it and keep it cool. If all houses where built to or close to the Passivhaus specification , energy use would drop and people would spend less on energy.

    --
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  11. Re:I don't know what they are doing to burn coal n by benjymouse · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also note, very few people in Denmark uses electric heating as you can get hot water from centralized production into your home (not clean only for use in radiators). My parents gets their heating from a power plant 20km away.

    Not to nitpick, but danes refer to that centralized production as "surplus heat". The "surplus" heat is heat generated as a bi-effect from producing electricity.... - from coal. So, when the electricity all comes from wind, the danes need to find some other way to heat their houses during winter.

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