Finland Set To Become First Country To Ban Coal Use For Energy (newscientist.com)

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. From a New Scientist article: "Basically, coal would disappear from the Finnish market," says Peter Lund, a researcher at Aalto University, and chair of the energy programme at the European Academies' Science Advisory Council. The groundwork for the ban already seems to be in place. Coal use has been steadily declining in Finland since 2011, and the nation heavily invested in renewable energy in 2012, leading to a near doubling of wind power capacity the following year. It also poured a further $85 million into renewable power this past February. On top of this, Nordic energy prices, with the exception of coal, have been dropping since 2010. As a result of such changes, coal-fired power plants are being mothballed and shut all over Finland, leaving coal providing only 8 per cent of the nation's energy.

Comments

Re:Meaningless

[blindseer]

The fact that the DoD has declared that resource wars (over water and oil) will be the biggest military threat to the US in the next 50 years?

I'm not arguing that the DOD got this wrong. I'm arguing that if CAGW is truly a threat to humanity then all options must be explored, not all options except nuclear power.

I saw some very interesting people speaking on this topic from recorded presentations on Youtube. The DOD, and the US Navy in particular, are very interested in addressing a potential threat to the world's oil supply. The USN is fighting hard for more nuclear powered ships. The USN has been doing research on synthesizing aircraft fuel from seawater and nuclear power. The USAF and USN have been testing bio-fuels in their cargo planes, and if this proves successful this research will continue with other aircraft. The US Army has been using an 80% bio-diesel blend for years in their vehicles on domestic bases. The USMC and US Army have been funding research in solar panels that can be used on forward operating bases to reduce demand for diesel used in generating electricity.

If anyone is working on this problem the right way it is the DOD. The people that are doing it the wrong way are ignoring the energy potential from nuclear power.

Trump supports the military, supports expanding nuclear power, but is skeptical about CAGW. Even though the CAGW people hate him for being a "denier" he's also dong all the right things to actually fix the problem. If the CAGW people would actually stop protesting and shitting on police cars just long enough to think through what Trump has offered they might actually, though no doubt grudgingly, find him not all that bad on policy.

Re: renewable power = nuclear in Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good. Finland shows the way with clean, dependable emissions-free power.