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The End of Coal Could Be Closer Than It Looks (bloomberg.com)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report on Monday saying that the world's electrical utilities need to reduce coal consumption by at least 60 percent over the next two decades through 2030 to avoid the worst effects of climate change that could occur with more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. While that reduction seems out of reach, Bloomberg crunched some numbers and found that "it's possible to meet consumption-cut targets on the current path." From the report: The conventional wisdom is that this isn't possible, as rising demand from emerging economies, led by China and India, overwhelms the switch from fossil fuels in richer countries. That may underestimate the changing economics of energy generation, though. For one thing, it assumes that Asian countries will continue to build new coal-fired plants at a rapid rate, even though renewables are already the cheaper option in India and heading that way in China and Southeast Asia. For another, the falling cost and rising penetration of wind and solar is so recent that we're only just starting to see how they damage the business models of conventional generators. Thanks to the deflation of recent years, renewables already produce energy at a lower cost than thermal power plants. That causes the overall price of wholesale electricity to fall, reducing a conventional plant's revenue per megawatt-hour. When this drops below the generator's operating costs, the only away to avoid losing money is to switch off altogether. As a result, capacity factors -- the share of time when the plant is on and producing electricity -- decline as well, further undermining returns.
The shift from an always-on "baseload" demand profile to a peaks-and-troughs one like this carries its own problems. The act of ramping up and down consumes fuel and causes the physical plant to wear out faster. Absent expensive refurbishments, that could take a decade off the 40- to 50-year life of a coal plant -- and banks will get progressively less likely to fund long-term refurbs as wind and solar further damage the economics of fossil power. Researchers at the Australian National University this year modeled the effect of this sort of scenario on that country's generation mix. Assuming that the cost of renewables continues to evolve in line with current trends, they found the average retirement age of coal plants falls to 30 years from 50 years. As a result, coal-powered generation drops by about 70 percent between 2020 and 2030. "Let's assume the addition of net new generation stops in 2020; that plant life reduces to 30 years from 40 years; and that capacity factors gradually fall from the current 50 percent to 35 percent, still well above the levels of the U.K.'s coal generators in recent years," the report says in closing. "The effect of those operating changes alone reduces coal-fired electricity output in 2030 by about 40 percent relative to the higher scenario. [...] Factor in a price on carbon or other robust government intervention and the decline would be much faster."
The shift from an always-on "baseload" demand profile to a peaks-and-troughs one like this carries its own problems. The act of ramping up and down consumes fuel and causes the physical plant to wear out faster. Absent expensive refurbishments, that could take a decade off the 40- to 50-year life of a coal plant -- and banks will get progressively less likely to fund long-term refurbs as wind and solar further damage the economics of fossil power. Researchers at the Australian National University this year modeled the effect of this sort of scenario on that country's generation mix. Assuming that the cost of renewables continues to evolve in line with current trends, they found the average retirement age of coal plants falls to 30 years from 50 years. As a result, coal-powered generation drops by about 70 percent between 2020 and 2030. "Let's assume the addition of net new generation stops in 2020; that plant life reduces to 30 years from 40 years; and that capacity factors gradually fall from the current 50 percent to 35 percent, still well above the levels of the U.K.'s coal generators in recent years," the report says in closing. "The effect of those operating changes alone reduces coal-fired electricity output in 2030 by about 40 percent relative to the higher scenario. [...] Factor in a price on carbon or other robust government intervention and the decline would be much faster."
Well, all those Jews wonâ(TM)t burn themselves.
This article seems to be in the series of green propaganda that is trying to hit back at the recent revelation that China is building up coal en masse. Like most such articles, it's written by messianic part of green movement, the people who basically view it as religion and reject pragmatic solutions entirely. Hence the goal being the "end of coal" rather than actually realistic "reduction of coal in favour of natgas and other less emitting power sources", and lying that is necessary to frame it as if "end of coal" is achievable.
Solar and wind power take orders of magnitude more material resources for the same energy output compared to nuclear.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2018/08/why-i-favor-nuclear-power.html
There simply is not enough industrial capacity to build out this much solar and wind in any meaningful time frame. I'm going from memory here as I can't find the source right now but as I recall the steel and concrete go towards current building of coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. To create the same energy output from wind and solar would mean taking all current steel and concrete produced now and putting it all towards just those, and we'd still not have enough to keep up with growing demand.
Could we simply double our steel and concrete production to meet this demand? I guess, since we've obviously grown our ability to produce both. Just think of the environmental impact of that though. That's a lot of digging up earth for raw materials.
There's also the data point from the graphs on that article I linked to above, the CO2 output. Wind and solar are a considerable improvement over coal and natural gas but nuclear is better yet.
Say what you will about the problems of nuclear power but they are far more easily solved than CO2 output. Safety issues of nuclear power are nothing compared to the deaths caused by industrial accidents from wind and solar. Waste problems from nuclear are far more easily solved than finding enough glass and concrete for solar and wind. Also, it's not like solar and wind don't have waste issues to solve.
When it comes to the cost of nuclear this gets back to the problems of the resources needed for wind and solar. As demand rises so do costs, you think that the costs of silicon and steel won't rise as people demand more wind and solar power? We know what the cost of materials for nuclear cost because the material needs for nuclear are the same as coal, because the material needs are nearly identical for a coal plant as they are for a nuclear power plant of the same output.
This is a basic fail of economics in the fine article for failing to consider even the most basic of needs to support such a switch from coal to wind and solar. Prices will not remain static for such wildly differing demands for materials.
The goal is destroy the west out of (self-)hatred, while it makes nearly no difference.
Fossil fuel subsidies by the US run to $200 trillion a year.
If we spent one year of that on alternatives, we'd be fossil fuel free and energy independent by 2020.
The following year, we could wipe out the national debt, introduce universal incomes, revitalise education and rebuild national infrastructure and the space program.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Germany has plowed a fortune into renewables, taking the tech farther than anyone else. And it is still having to open new coal plants and buy Russian gas to meet its baseload energy demand.
Wind power arguably works fairly well in Northern Europe. Biggest problem is transmission.
And what transmission problem is German wind having, exactly? This one!
Bringing wind power from northern Germany to the densely populated parts of the country requires construction of a new series of north-south transmission lines, called the Stromautobahn ("Power freeway"). The same lunkhead Greens who forced the country off its carbon-free nuclear base are protesting both the new transmission lines and the new lignite coal pits that their own policies have necessitated.