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More Than 40 Percent of World Coal Plants Are Unprofitable, Says Report (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: More than 40 percent of the world's coal plants are operating at a loss due to high fuel costs and that proportion could to rise to nearly 75 percent by 2040, a report by environmental think-tank Carbon Tracker showed on Friday. London-based Carbon Tracker analyzed the profitability of 6,685 coal plants around the world, representing 95 percent of operating capacity and 90 percent of capacity under construction. It found that 42 percent of global coal capacity is already unprofitable. From 2019 onwards, it expects falling renewable energy costs, air pollution regulations and carbon pricing to result in further cost pressures and make around 72 percent of the fleet cashflow negative by 2040. In addition, by 2030, new wind and solar will be cheaper than continuing to operate 96 percent of today's existing and planned coal plants, the report said.
Something smells fishy. TFAs first two paragraphs seem to contradict each other. Thereâ(TM)s no source information available. And I can guarantee you oil investors/producers arenâ(TM)t stupid. They wouldnt/couldnt continue operating at a loss...that premise is ridiculous.
Id leave some room for the possibility of it being true lately (only recently in the last couple of weeks) as oil prices have fallen...but that is only a temporary condition until if/when prices recovery and/or adjustments are made to production/supply to bring the price back up.
This seems more like some propaganda piece aimed at convincing people âoeoil bad - alternative energy good - save the trees - climate change - yada yada yada.â
Natural Gas has depressed prices so much, coal can't compete. Intentionally reduced capacity factors, using more gas instead, makes it even harder for coal.
Ah, the first random brainfart that entered the tiny mind of an internet dweeb. Yes, I'm sure it does. Detailed studies tend to account for far more than your feels.
However, I was impressed by raising the base load myth without saying it directly. The problem with your idea is that existing non-renewable sources are already variable and unreliable, so the grid is already designed to cope with it. Even more hilariously, coal power plants are incredibly inflexible compared to wind and solar. Coal power plants can take up to 8 hours to reach peak operation from a warm start, and have suffer from large cycle stress that reduces their lifetime considerably. They are, ironically, fossils of a bygone era.
Hopefully this will lead to increased adoption of cleaner power production - that is not so bad for the environment.
I am not saying that all clean power is cheaper but the more of it that gets used the cheaper that it will become.
Usually the price is regulated and regulators won't jack prices because of the direct consumer impact. Additionally when the operating costs of these plants were considered, they didn't think about all these current and new regulations that jacked up the cost of operations and overhauls.
But the analysts basically say to divest out of coal because the trajectories of many long term factors are against it. Ie: more regulations, other energy options becoming cheaper, and increasing fuel costs.
Thou, I think in our globally connected world, thinking out 20+ years is a bit difficult. You are almost guessing. 20 years ago, I don't think anyone was predicting our current situation.
Coal isn't being "sabotaged" by regulations. The environmental costs are being incorporated into its usage. And coal does get a lot of subsidies, from mining, usage, and disposal.
And coal plant designs are of a long gone era. Even the latest approved nuclear plants are 2-3 core design versions past current operations. This isn't true for coal. Of course renewables are all new. The only thing as old as coal is hydro.
Along with deaths from respiratory disease! Yay!
No. Wind is as old as hydro. The designs just were different. Kind of like hydro. Passive solar has a long history too.
Utilities are one of the most regulated and subsidized industries in the world. Additionally, in some places, generating capacity is government-owned, and public enterprises frequently operate at a loss. So the real question is: how much of all generating capacity is unprofitable?
Coal will die, but saying that plants are currently unprofitable isn't necessarily an indication of anything. It needs to be compared on a relative basis to alternatives.
The stated source is "a report by environmental think-tank Carbon Tracker". So people whose full-time job is literally energy propaganda.
In other news, Coke tastes bad, according to a report by Pepsi. Linux sucks, according to Microsoft
The only thing suprising here is how many Slahdotters let BeauHD get away with posting this crap.
Along with deaths from respiratory disease! Yay!
The original post says nothing about relaxing emissions of anything but CO2, so you are wrong nobody's lungs would be harmed by this. The original post was right, the problem with coal has been the artificial raising of their fuel costs, specifically tied to CO2 emissions.
so long as coal miners can decide our presidential elections by swinging Ohio and Virginia. That said, I've yet to hear anyone from the left give those workers a viable alternative to working in the mines. So far the answer has been "Time to reskill". Those guys know coal mining is a dying thing. They'd reskill if they could.
What we really need is a federal jobs guarantee like they did in the 30s. But nobody wants to pay for that. So expect more political distortions.
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I think wind mills have been used more than two thousand years longer than coal.
Artificial? Since when does burning coal causes no CO2 emissions? Perhaps we should also start taxing those mountain hating coal mining companies for the toxic runoff from their mines that ruins the land of people down hill from their strip mining operation? ... and if you think that toxic runoff is some kind of 'artificial construct' like CO2 emissions I can introduce you to some very angry Appalachian Hillbillies who are ready willing and able to let you bathe in a pond of your choosing full of toxic coal mine runoff.
And how! Not too far away from me is land that was destroyed by coal mining, and before the companies had to restore the land.
I've thought of having tours of the area to show off what has been done. And as a twist, play down he obvious environmental impact, and play up the money lost.
Streams - once highly profitable tourist fishing destinations with almost no cost of doing business, and with high earning tourists who fish and stay in hotels and eat in restaurants. Millions lost every year (adjusted for inflation)
Deforestation. The trees - if any grow after the area is strip mined - are worthless. Usless for providing profit and jobs for logging. Untold millions lost.
Real Estate. The highwalls and tailing piles look like Mars, and are a profit opportunity lost. The modern trend of building communities 10 -15 miles out of town isn't going to work. The land is destroyed,
I reckon I'll have the human Ferengi bawling like babies in no time.
That's only slightly tongue in cheek. How we could ever allow one group - the mining interests, to permanently destroy land that could be useful for many purposes both profitable, providing entertainment, and ecologically sustaining is so short sighted.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
From Wikipedia: "Archeological evidence in China indicates surface mining of coal and household usage after approximately 3490 BC."
We aren't building wind mills today. Wind mills are used to grind small things into a powder, known as milling. We're putting up wind turbines which generate electricity. The technology in those ranges from thousands of years ago to today as the turbine itself and the blades are always being updated.
But the analysts basically say to divest out of coal because the trajectories of many long term factors are against it. Ie: more regulations, other energy options becoming cheaper, and increasing fuel costs.
Thou, I think in our globally connected world, thinking out 20+ years is a bit difficult. You are almost guessing. 20 years ago, I don't think anyone was predicting our current situation.
Another big factor against coal - it's a finite resource, and getting harder to get. Hard to imagine putting all that work into something that is going away.
The coal shills in here and other places have a real bit of cognitive dissonance. I can only guess at the cause, but it would seem that there is some sort of story line that either coal is in infinite supply, or that even if we run out one day, just like that, we'll switch over to something else. Or more likely, not eve thinking about that.
And good luck with replacing all of this with nuc power.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It is plausible though.
I was with you up until the part which said plants under construction might not be profitable. I find it hard to believe anyone would build a plant where they can see the numbers aren't going to work. At least, not in any sort of free market. That's why nuclear plants don't get built (in the US): investors see the high (and highly variable) costs and don't fund the plant.
If the plant is being built by a government, well, governments aren't all that big on profit and loss so this report won't matter to them.
"Coal isn't being "sabotaged" by regulations. A tiny portion of the environmental costs are being incorporated into its usage."
There, FTFY. Coal would have been gone long since if it had to pay anything like its full costs... which are arguably infinite, since we literally can't clean up after it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Natural gas power plants also spin up and spin down more quickly than old coal plants, allowing them to track the short-term changes in the demand curve better.
Here's a graph. Notice that the drop in coal is mirrored by a rise in gas. https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl...
Only if their findings donâ(TM)t correspond with your preconceived position.
Ah, the first random brainfart that entered the tiny mind of an internet dweeb. Yes, I'm sure it does.
What's needed is a thing called "storage". Tesla has been busy providing solutions to that:
https://electrek.co/2018/01/23...
Of course now you're going to say "what if there's no wind or sun for a whole month?"
Haters gonna hate.
No sig today...
Maybe you are wrong and the people funding them know better. Do you think people like to lose money?
In the U.S. you are arguing over the properties of the empty set, everything is vacuously true! This is amusing, here for example we have a web page devoted to new coal plant construction in North America and there is nothing listed. Investors do not like to lose money and as a result there are no coal plants being build! The money has spoken.
Virtually all planned coal plant construction is in China or India, where they are more strongly influence by government policy than profit-and-loss.
By the same token, not wanting to lose money, there are currently only two nuclear power units under construction in the U.S. (the Vogtle 3 and 4 units) , both massively over budget (planned cost $1 billion each, actual cost $9 billion each). Seven other plant projects that started at about the same time have bailed out. That the two Vogtle units are still being completed is due to the sunk cost fallacy and the political effect of having multiple minority owners (the decision to cancel and eat the cost is too difficult for too many, and so it continues. Getting any more nuclear power plants built in the U.S. requires finding a way to make them profitable. No hippies are holding them back.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
There are no coal plants being built in the US because natural gas in the US is very cheap and there is no point to building a coal plant. However, for example, when Japan closed their nuclear power plants after their disaster, it turned to coal and natural gas to make up the difference. Likewise Germany has 3 coal plants being built. There is no massive government conspiracy to "use coal". No one wants to use coal. The decision is related to money somehow.
Maybe you are wrong and the people funding them know better. Do you think people like to lose money?
Maybe they assume they can just funnel some money to their buddies in power to make sure they make a profit.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Before you can collect a prize you need to fix the bug in your auto-correct entry system.
A broad mix is something nobody wants, but it's absolutely essential. Solar systems are going to be overtaxed if there's another really big volcanic eruption. Not that we won't have lots of other problems as well, but without power, it'll just be much worse. One volcanic eruption at a time is bad enough - Laki, Tambora, Krakatoa, to say nothing of the super volcanoes. Get several in a single year and it would be bad. Wildfires don't help either but are more localized. Solar is great - as long as the sunshine can reliably hit the collectors.
You use the surplus energy generated from your renewal systems to push water uphill (potential energy), or to charge up batteries (electrical energy), spin up flywheels (kinetic energy), compress gas (kinetic energy), charge up hydrogen fuel cells (chemical energy). Then you release energy from these sources when you need it.
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I have a smart meter and I pay different rates depending on the availability of electricity.
I also have a compressor cut off on my AC that automatically turns it off with a signal from the power company if there is a power shortage, in return for a discount on my power bill.
They had vertical windmills - an S shaped sail that sat on top of a millstone. Using just wind power alone, the natives could ease themselves from the tedious task of milling grain by hand.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Republicans had majority...
From: https://www.merriam-webster.co...
windmill noun
windÂâmill | \Ëwin(d)-ËOEmil \
Definition of windmill
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft especially : a wind-driven water pump or electric generator
b : the wind-driven wheel of a windmill
2 : something that resembles or suggests a windmill especially : a calisthenic exercise that involves alternately lowering each outstretched hand to touch the toes of the opposite foot
3 [ from the episode in Don Quixote by Cervantes in which the hero attacks windmills under the illusion that they are giants ] : an imaginary wrong, evil, or opponent â"usually used in the phrase to tilt at windmills
It's a fucking windmill and so I'm going to call it a windmill.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Ok, what things did they say that were false?
That is definitely possible. Everyone likes money.
What's needed is a thing called "storage".
That is part of the solution. But there are two other solutions: 1) Wider grids. 2) Differential pricing.
Charge more when power is scarce, and less when it is plentiful. "Smart meters" are already installed in many areas, and people quickly find a way to change their usage patterns.
Of course now you're going to say "what if there's no wind or sun for a whole month?"
The total amount of wind / clouds is nearly constant. So if the wind isn't blowing in Nebraska, there is extra wind in Oklahoma. This is actually a benefit since wind power goes up as the cube of the wind speed. So double the wind concentrated in one area is much better than the same wind volume spread out.
We just need wider grids so the power can be moved from windy/sunny areas to becalmed and be-clouded areas. Even better if these grids are expanded east-west, so we can get a time shift as well. Arizona sunshine can power ACs in Florida after sunset.
It was discussed in the past on slashdot. The price an energy provider can charge depends on two prices. When supply exceeds demand, it's the cheapest provider who dictates the price. Everyone will trying undercutting each other to their minimum profit margin. When demand exceeds supply is the most expensive provider who dictates the price. Everyone else can charge up to that price. The costs depend on spin up time to heat up the systems: renewable > gas > nuclear > coal
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>Who knows?
Then I guess your posts can go right in the garbage.
I'm afraid that the updates are modest efficiency and cost improvements. Even if the hardware is free, yapping significant more wind energy, without significantly altering local ecologies and weather, sets physical limits on how much wind energy is available. Similar though not identical limitations exist for every energy resource. My concern for these renewable energy sources is that they have maximum limits within reach of our existing energy economy. Being natural, or "free" does not mean it's unlimited, and that is easy to lose track of.
Both heavy metal emissions and SO2/NOx (substances that cause acid rain) problems have been solved in coal burning in larger plants quite a while ago. The problem that we cannot solve is CO2 emissions per power generated. It's too high.
Not saying it doesn't mean their findings shouldn't be looked at more closely since they clearly have an agenda. But it's in line with the coal plant closings we're seeing. Can you site a study where coal plants _are_ profitable in aggregate?
/. is just an excuse to talk about a trend that seems pretty obvious. If Coal wasn't losing ground Trump wouldn't have been able to capitalize on out of work miners. The market would have those folks well employed.
Put another way, here's the left wing bastion of Forbes discussion the same thing.
Posting this particular study on
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Of course there are. But the problem has been solved for those who are willing to buy the tech. So it is in fact solved.
P.S. In your desperate anti-science dogma, you keep conflating microplastics with plastic garbage. Reminder: we are quite full of microplastics, and we don't eat them. We drink them. And as far as we know, and as people who found them kept reminding us in their study, they are in fact biologically inert and too small to cause mechanical damage. So I'll be fine.
You on the other hand really should stop shoving green anti-science dogma in your head. It's unhealthy.
The highwalls and tailing piles look like Mars, and are a profit opportunity lost.
Uh, does Elon know about this?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Battery factories aren't the problem. The materials that go into them are the issue. Even battery recycling doesn't address the problems the huge battery load would require. People earlier have complained about the cost of mining for coal. Out in WY, nobody cares as the land is reclaimed nicely and the coal is better quality anyway. But the same issues of coal mining are true for mining for rare earths needed for battery production. You might not have fly ash retention ponds, but you do have waste. Much of the rare earth mining is done in countries where supply lines could be eliminated quickly for political reasons. Batteries are great. Pumped water storage is great. Buried loop water storage is great. None of these have 0 environmental or economic cost. Just building more battery plants isn't a solution.
Are you, by chance, Don Quixote?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Two, actually. The third has already been finished.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Coal getting harder to get? No - other than due to NIMBY problems. Harder to ship because environmental wing nuts don't want coal trains to cross their land or coal to be shipped out their ports - yes, but harder find and extract? No.
Nuclear doesn't ramp up and down when you need it, but battery storage systems are immediate.
You wrote that but didn't see the obvious (to me at least) implications. What if we mate a large battery with a nuclear power plant? That means we have a means to get power, rain or shine, day or night, and still be able to load follow.
Aren't your lips chapped from all the time you spend fellating nuclear power?
As oppose to your lips and wind power?
IMHO, batteries won't save wind and solar power. I suspect that in fact they will lead to their death. If we can charge a battery from coal or nuclear power, and let the battery handle the minute by minute shift in demand, then we don't have to worry about where or when the wind blows.
With a fleet of nuclear power plants, to have a sufficient overcapacity for maintenance periods and unscheduled outages, and a fleet of batteries, then we can have a 100% nuclear powered world. Just like we could have a 100% wind and solar powered world with enough batteries backing up wind and solar. I don't believe either world is realistic, and neither should you.
There's billions in that industry already, your suction can make no practical difference.
There's billions of dollars, likely trillions in fact, riding on who can build the better energy source. Batteries alone cannot save wind power from competition from nuclear power. There's billions of dollars in nuclear power too. Some of that from the military because it turns out we abandoned wind powered ships a long time ago. Nuclear power makes the navies of the world move now. That means technology in nuclear power will improve if only to make warships move faster. That technology will find its way into the commercial designs and the result will mean cheaper nuclear power in the future.
Nuclear power is not dead. It will not die at the hands of wind and solar so long as there are aircraft carriers at sea. Because nuclear power is so safe, clean, energy dense, low CO2, plentiful, and reliable, it will find its way into the commercial electrical generation market. Again, this might be only to keep nuclear engineers employed so the navies of the world can keep warships moving at sea.
We need "nukes". The level of vacuum you can create will not change this unless you can find a way to make an aircraft carrier move by wind and solar power at a performance that exceeds nuclear power.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Just a thought, but they might be profitable if they switched from internal combustion engine-driven vehicles and tools to plug-in electrics recharged from renewable sources and nuclear power.. oh, wait..
Well, see, fossil fuels are clearly and objectively shitty, though, and everyone should understand that by now. ;-)
That's fine for large nations like the USA, what about Japan?
Oh, I know the answer. Japan is restarting many of their shuttered nuclear power plants, and has plans to build more.
Then think of all the other inhabited islands spread around the world. They can't spread out their electrical grid like you propose. This is especially true in places that are subject to hurricanes and such. A nuclear power plant in Florida kept running during a hurricane because under that large concrete dome they don't much care about how much sun and wind they get. With proper design earthquakes can be managed too. Fukushima didn't melt down because of the quake, it melted down because it was a design older than Chernobyl and lost the power needed to keep cool. A newer design would not do this.
Maybe an island nation like Japan could in the future rely on sun, wind, and storage for their power needs. Perhaps on an island differential pricing will help as well. What they can't do is widen their grid to gather more of the intermittent sun and wind.
Oh, and I'm sure someone will want to bring up tidal power or some other undersea power source. When that starts to be profitable then let me know. Until then Japan, Hawaii, and other islands will need oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to keep the lights on.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
How we could ever allow one group - the mining interests, to permanently destroy land that could be useful for many purposes both profitable, providing entertainment, and ecologically sustaining is so short sighted.
This is the sort of thing I'm referring to when I say "Capitalism gone bad" or "Out-of-control capitalism"; there was a time, dim in our memories now (and absent completely in the memories of some too young or too unaware of history to know it) when 'capitalism' operated differently, operated with more regard for the needs of society, i.e. capitalism that had more of a conscience. A good way for me to illustrate this, maybe, is it's like a certain yeast-like micro-organism that naturally exists in the human body: when it's not over-fed with sugars, it exists in a symbiotic role, helping regulate the natural balance of your body, but when it's fed too much sugar, it changes it's nature entirely, goes into a spore-like mode, over-reproducing, and actually causes harm. That's the road capitalism seems to have gone down, causing all the harm you mentioned in it's mad rush for more, more, more profit. Note that I'm not saying capitalism is bad; it's not, but there needs to be a sense of scale observed, to keep it from running mad and destroying everything in it's wake.
FWIW, you're right about nuclear reactor/power plant design; but the NIMBYs and others who have been scared off of nuclear are standing in the way of it saving us from ourselves -- and being someone who voted for Rancho Seco to be shut down back in the 80's, I feel I have a right to admit we were both right for all the wrong reasons, and wrong for all the right reasons, if you catch my drift. There are now, in fact, much safer fission reactor designs that are not the 'high pressure' types currently in use, and that are inherently safer, theoretically meltdown-proof, but trying to get the DoE to allow them to be built, getting funding to build them, and getting people within the affected area to sign off on them being built, has prevented any of them from moving forward. We've got to get past this fear of the nuclear boogeyman though. Fission isn't as good as fusion will be once we get the details of it ironed out, but we need time to do that, and meanwhile we need to stop dumping the last several million years worth of natural carbon sequestration back into the atmosphere.
No, it does not ... there is no scalable TWh storage technology to carry any significant power across a Dunkelflaute. The German's way to deal with the problem for instance as they were turning off coal and nuclear has been to just borrow power from their neighbours when there's shortage. except everyone is doing the same thing and excess generating capacity is disappearing fast.
http://notrickszone.com/2018/0...
As long as solar and wind are not cheaper than fueling the backup plants, or we get cheap scalable TWh scale storage, it is being subsidized. Merely being able to be cheaper than wholesale pricing at a given point in time is not enough. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with it needing subsidy, but the lies about it being profitable without it are dangerous. Politicians aren't very smart, they are prone to drinking their own koolaid. Then suddenly you'll get rolling blackouts.
Trump's opponent said "we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work". OF COURSE he capitalized on that when speaking in coal country.
Things don't have to already be really bad for you to dislike a politician who says she's going to try to make you unemployed.
If a politician said "I'm going to put a lot of security experts out of work", and was actually trying to do exactly that, Bruce and I are going to vote for their opponent - even though we both have good jobs at the moment.
First of all, I have to congratulate the German people for having invented such a tremendous word "Dunkelflaute".
Second, a centralized large-scale hydrogen storage facility with fuel cells is indeed a scalable energy storage solution.
It can only be made with 40% round-trip energy efficiency, but just compensate for that by doubling or so the amount of wind and solar, which is relatively cheap and feasible.
Remember that right now, a lot of wind farms are being paid to not generate during times of surplus wind and low demand. Storing that energy at 40% efficiency is obviously much better than that.
Or do some research & development to improve adiabatic compressed air storage, which should achieve 70% round-trip energy efficiency.
These technologies, plus lithium batteries at the grid edge, can easily be a scalable energy storage solution.
We are also overlooking deep geothermal power generation. Current oil-drilling technology is good enough to take advantage of a lot of that resource. And geothermal can generate 24/7 with no GHG emissions.
The reason that this stuff, all well within our short term technological reach, is not done, comes down to that in the short term it would be more expensive, because of the artificial "free pollution" pass given to the fossil fuel energy industry. Slap a decent carbon tax on, one that would still be much less than the remediation costs of adapting to fossil-fuel-caused global warming and climate change, and these new energy technologies would be cost-competitive or superior immediately.
It's all down to lack of political will to make the needed changes. If you don't like more tax, a carbon fee and dividend works almost just as well at speeding the change and leveling the economic playing field for clean energy technology, while remaining revenue neutral for governments.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
That was putting them out of work. Coal plants would be profitable if they could run like they did before the EPA and mine safety. But on that other hand we'd miners dying left and right and cancer villages.
Hillary's problem wasn't the message, it was how she said it and more importantly her complete lack of leadership when it came to finding real solutions for out of work coal miners.
Bernie has the solution, which is a federal jobs guarantee. Put those coal miners to work but building solar panels. Time will tell if he gets a chance to do it.
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Well, that's a good start.
We need to be off them altogether, right around, oh, let's see, now.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Drinkypoo, don't you get tired of pushing nothing but solar/wind? And now, you are trolling. Even now, Denmark, Portugal and Germany have spent the most money on solar/wind and still can not come close to doing 100% of their energy. And if hit by multiple volcanos, they will lose a lot of their power. You sit here and speak out about AGW, but then speak against real solutions for it. The only solution that will work is 'all of the above' of clean energy. And yes, that includes, not just nukes, but Geothermal as well. Ask Indonesia, costa Rica, and Iceland about it. Back in America, Wind and solar are nice, but both depend heavily on the sun. Yellowstone WILL erupt at some time. When it does the last thing we need is to not have the energy to drive our cars, our hospitals, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What's your magical CO2 emitting fuel that doesn't also release particulates and NOx? You should get a patent for it right away.
There are plenty of roofs in Japan to put solar panels. There are plenty of mountains for wind turbines. I visited Japan recently and saw none of either.
There are plenty of roofs in Japan to put solar panels. There are plenty of mountains for wind turbines. I visited Japan recently and saw none of either.
Japan is really dragging their feet on renewables. There is plenty of wind capacity in Hokkaido (firmly in the "roaring forties") and northern Honshu. With electricity prices of 20 cents (22 yen) / kwh, wind turbines would easily be profitable. All they need to do is lay down some transmission infrastructure and remove the bureaucratic red tape.
In other words, you have lowered your standard of living
Not at all. PG&E pays me to conserve peak power, and I then have that money to spend on more important things, thus RAISING my standard of living.
I guess you wouldn't pick up a $20 bill on the ground because it's a finite resource, unlike a job which is renewable. Imagine putting all that work to pick up something that is going away the moment you pick it up!
What a weird reply. I had a guy like you that worked for me at one time. He'd latch onto a sentence, then contradict me. When the whole time he wasn't paying attention, because if he had, he would knove known what I was talking about. One of the few people I enjoyed firing.
The point is my dense friend, that if nothing is around when coal isn't economically available any more, the resulting economic upheaval will have people killing each other over that stupid 20 you tried to use as an argument.
Now take a chill, and pay attention.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The highwalls and tailing piles look like Mars, and are a profit opportunity lost.
Uh, does Elon know about this?
Never thought of that! Could be a great place to train.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
sandwiches? Because that all Americans need to fuel the miners who are returning to the mines in droves to aid our exalted leader's plan to Make America Great Again.
Trump casinos!
>_ A newer design would not do this.
Dude, that phrase has been used a million times -- every time after a new nuclear accident happens.
Please, if you're going to be delusional:
a) don't assume we're gonna follow you and
b) do come up with a new argument -- buy one if you need, but no more BS like that.
Pretty please.
In other words...
"I don't have an argument against nuclear power except that of telling people on how 1970s era reactors were poorly designed."
Sound about right? It does to me. That's like saying we shouldn't be flying a Boeing 787 because the de Havilland Comet was falling from the sky.
If you want to argue against new nuclear power plants then make an argument that is relevant against new nuclear reactors. Don't expect me to take you seriously when you bring up Chernobyl when discussing a new reactor built in Alabama. Three Mile Island isn't even a good example of the dangers of nuclear power. Nobody died from that and I heard on good authority that the reactor was still functional, and could have been safely restarted.
Don't tell me I should just spread out my solar panels and windmills when I live on an island. I can't do that. I need power and I need it 24/7. I know I can get that from nuclear power. If you want to stop me from getting it then you need to provide something that keeps my lights on, not an argument that was out of date 20 years ago.
Coal getting harder to get? No - other than due to NIMBY problems.
You don't say? NIMBY isn't the right word You don't have a back yard when they strip the coal out. Or if you are in the valley they dumped the top of the mountain they stripped to get at the coal.
Harder to ship because environmental wing nuts don't want coal trains to cross their land or coal to be shipped out their ports - yes, but harder find and extract? No.
First, Far right wing Environmentalists? Or don't you know what a wing nut is?
Second, I have know idea how you figure that a railroad's right of way can be pre-empted by these right wing environmentalists. Our local railroads carry whatever is legal to carry. We have plenty of cars that carry coal every day.
You have some interesting ideas - perhaps you have a newsletter?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
How we could ever allow one group - the mining interests, to permanently destroy land that could be useful for many purposes both profitable, providing entertainment, and ecologically sustaining is so short sighted.
This is the sort of thing I'm referring to when I say "Capitalism gone bad".
Capitalism without any sort or moral structure destroys itself.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
and you still have to recharge batteries. There is only so many batteries that you can put in, and recharge. As such, we need at least 2/3 of our energy to be able to come from base-load power. Oddly, with nuclear SMRs along our coasts, we can use the thermal waste for desalinating the cooling water as a near free item. With these, we could require that all those living within 50-100 miles of the ocean to get their water from the ocean, and then save the aquifers and river waters for more inland areas.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Eastern coal mining != Western coal mining.
Check Portland, Oregon's efforts to block shipments of western coal through their port for sale to China. For news articles search portland coal shipments in google.
I guess facts and scientific studies are now counted as "trolling".
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Long before fracking and renewables, huge numbers of coal mines were operating at a loss for political reasons.
The same reason that motor vehicle factories and agriculture in so many countries (including US and EU) are surviving only with government subsidies.
The question is not "why are they losing money?" - all mines have a limited lifetime before becoming unviable.
The question should be "Why are they still operating?"
1. Coal is heavily subsidized in the US
No, it's not. Not on a per kWh basis. https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...
2. Coal is not made to bear external costs.
Nothing is going to change that. Carbon taxes won't fix that because the people that sell the carbon based fuels just pass that cost on to the people buying the fuel. The people buying the fuel bear this external cost in whatever form that takes, be it global warming or air pollution. The only way to fix that is to use an alternative that is cheaper and cleaner than coal, that's nuclear power. Nuclear power has it's own external cost but that's far lower than anything else.
3. Despite this, coal _is_ losing in the marketplace, in the sense that its absolute use and relative use in energy consumption are decreasing.
Coal is losing to natural gas and nothing else. This is a good thing.
So what are you talking about?
I'm tired of the lies. I'm tired of promises of future technologies that never come to be.
Wind and solar cannot displace coal, at least not any time soon. This might change in the future with the batteries that keep getting promised so we need something that works today. Nuclear works today. Most everything I hear against nuclear power is a lie or a political construct. Most everything I hear in favor of wind and solar is also a lie. Maybe it's true that wind, solar, and batteries are the future but that's not helpful today. What can you offer *TODAY* as a solution? Batteries are not a solution today, therefore wind and solar are not a solution today. What works today is nuclear power, as proven by hundreds of operational nuclear power plants all over the world.
Here's an idea, let's not put our eggs in one basket. I keep hearing that nuclear power is not helpful because it takes ten years to finish a single nuclear power plant. That's a lie but let's go with it. Another lie I keep hearing is that in ten years we will have solved the problems of making batteries big enough and cheap enough so that wind and solar power can replace all the coal. Okay then, let's start building those nuclear power plants, and work on those batteries. In a decade from now let's see who cleans up the air and water first.
Here's the neat part about that nuclear power, they aren't asking for money from the government, they ask only for permission. Give them permission and nuclear power plants will get built. If you say they can't get built without a government loan then I say fine, don't give them a loan. I'm still quite certain that they get built. They need a permit though, but the government has issued maybe a half dozen in the last 50 years. They'll have to issue a dozen every year if we are going to solve the problems of global warming, pollution, and so on. That's not growth by the way, that's just replacing the existing coal power plants being shut down. If you want to see natural gas get replaced too then that means 24 new gigawatt sized nuclear power plants every year, or more likely half nuclear and half wind/solar/batteries/whatever.
If we don't see nuclear power plant permits then we will just see more natural gas. I'm fine with that too, because I'm not convinced global warming is a real problem. If you think it is then we can't wait for battery technology to save us, we need a solution *TODAY*. If the global warming alarmists can't agree on more nuclear power to solve this problem then I have to wonder just how seriously they take this problem.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The $20 bill example isn't latching onto a sentence, it is summarizing your entire point. Coal gives us more time to prepare for the next step, just like the $20 bill gives you more time to look for a job. You're arguing that buying some time is pointless if that time is finite, which just isn't true.
I had a guy like you who would think in absolutes and reach erroneous conclusions. Wait I didn't, you're the first one.
You can't tell me what my argument is - sorry, AC but you cannot.
Now, stop being an anonymous coward, and I'll discuss it with you, I've wasted as much time on AC's as they deserve. for the month.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
All of your arguments are wrong. Your facts are outdated. This is getting old.
It might be plausible, but you never know with these "think tanks". They are being paid by someone.
Literally everyone is being paid by someone, with the possible exception of the homeless. Therefore, the only place to get reliable news is skid row?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
coal and nuclear stabilize inside inner cycle with a large roasting mass.
What?
Yes, coal is expensive when sabotaged and renewable cheaper when subsidized.
Except that today, coal is subsidized (by healthcare), whereas renewables stand on their own legs. And boy, will your brain vessels rupture when you learn about the carbon tax initiatives... :-p
You see any funds for decommissioning the suing wrong farms? Nuclear is fully funded and coal is over most of they production cycle.
Again, what?
Ezekiel 23:20
Solved, my ass
Ezekiel 23:20
That is a story of improper disposal of coal ash. How is it in any way relevant to my statement of:
>Both heavy metal emissions and SO2/NOx (substances that cause acid rain) problems have been solved in coal burning in larger plants quite a while ago. The problem that we cannot solve is CO2 emissions per power generated. It's too high.
Of course now you're going to say "what if there's no wind or sun for a whole month?"
Like a _decade_ ago I read a report from an engineer in the UK about renewable energy vs "standard" energy. He was just a guy doing his own research (I don't believe he was astroturfing or Funded by Big Whatever).
:-)
This was a decade ago before the BatteryWall. But he was looking at solar (50% utilization because: night), wind, hydro, coal, gas, etc. One of the surprising things HE came up with was that like you said, wind stops sometimes. Guessing here, I think that in the UK / Europe every decade or so wind stops for up to two weeks, so needs some kind of a backup. Also, the cost of having a coal/oil/NatGas plant in stand-by mode was nearly the normal operating costs of the plant.
Not hating here, but: the sun goes down / wind stops occasionally / dry spells happen / oil rigs run dry / nuke rods expend / etc. How DO you always keep the base load powered -- no excuses -- never mind handling peaks or growth? And remember: "I didn't think a solar eclipse could last for a month" isn't an excuse.
Other power storage systems are: pumping water uphill, moving heavy trains uphill, compressing gas, speeding up a spinning flywheel. Notice that all of those end up power a generator, Tesla is at least bypassing that. But how expensive it is to replace the batteries and controlling assembly once exhausted, never mind the resources used in creating new ones? (That same question can be asked of ALL of them, not just the PowerWall. Tesla's the new kid on the block, so he's got some long term 'splainin to do besides New! Shiny! Pretty!)
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's wrong. It's far more likely that we discovered the black rocks that burn real good before we managed to build anything as complicated as a windmill.. or built boats for that matter..
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
You're a cunt
A tiny portion of the environmental costs are being incorporated into its usage.".
Dear complaining liberal,
Nature made coal for us to burn and be happy.. It has no other use than to catch fire. If we don't burn coal we make nature sad that we are rejecting her gift.
Please, think of nature. Make her happy by burning coal.
You mean the good old days like a couple hundred years ago, when you could buy and sell shares in companies that bought and sold human beings in the slave trade?
All of the FUD around wind and solar power can be addressed with infrastructure that has been used to back up nuclear power, like pumped storage.
"Smart meters" are already installed in many areas, and people quickly find a way to change their usage patterns..
Sure. I'm going to wear a sweater in my house in the winter. And I'll turn off the AC and be uncomfortable with just a fan in the summer.
Fuck that. I actually like living in the First World.
Your thinking skills are mirrored in your quoting ones.
The problem having been solved would have made this event imposible. Hence this event having happened refutes the existence of a solution.
Ezekiel 23:20
Takes one to know one.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Both heavy metal emissions and SO2/NOx (substances that cause acid rain) problems have been solved in coal burning in larger plants quite a while ago.
We can literally find power plants and other industrial polluters emitting in excess of their permit as rapidly as we can pay people to climb smokestacks. Source: a guy who used to actually do that for the government. And this was before Trump, you can bet your ass it's worse now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you'll accept Merriam-Webster adopting such lazy usage. After all, the English language has no formal gatekeeper and any word usage that becomes common gets in the book, whether stupid or not. Just don't pull out the pitchforks when they update the definition of "modem" to include a desktop computer tower.
There are relatively few places where coal could have been found near the surface. And how likely do you really think it is that anyone is going to keep trying to burn rocks after granite and quartz fails?
Since OPs premise is that you can't clean up after it, it's not really relevant if done small portion are willing to spend money cleaning up during. Nothing really solved.
There are relatively few places where coal could have been found near the surface. And how likely do you really think it is that anyone is going to keep trying to burn rocks after granite and quartz fails?
We discovered marijuana didn't we? How many plants you think they had to go through before they figured that one out? It only takes one person to discover it, you shortsighted.... sheesh.. Did you invent the wheel? Well then how the fuck do you know about them?
I'll take one for the team.. Fine, I'm a cunt.. And I spot one.. You
So in your view, literally none of the problems humans had in primeval times have been solved, because there can be mistakes which lead to improper handling of the solution, which result in disastrous consequences?
In what world is that a sane view to hold?
As someone who has family working in building various burners, I've no idea when you did what you claim to do, or if you ever did that. I do know for a fact that in US today, as well as EU the norms are overwhelmingly strictly enforced, and typically followed because there are economic incentives to hit certain targets on emissions in most developed countries over long period of time. Benefits that in some cases are so great that when fuel is below certain thresholds forcing the plant to emit more than is sufficient for certain economic incentive threshold to be hit, plant owner will literally execute a controlled shut down of the plant so they can maintain the sufficient buffer to be able to emit.
And since everything is logged on control systems of the plant, you didn't need people climbing smoke stacks in decades beyond replacing the sensors. You just make the query from each sensor. Falsifying this data is not just very hard to do, but would put actors who would agree to such an act in prison in most developing countries today.
Wait, you think that the acid from acid rain is still causing severe harm in regions where NOx and SO2 emissions have been taken care of?
Our biosphere has very powerful circulation of elements. The damage is taken care of in a matter of years by the normal activity of the nature itself if the cause is halted.
Even heavy metals get flushed out of the system eventually, through that tends to take longer. But luckily in most cases, heavy metal poisoning is extremely localized problem, to the point where contaminated area can simply be abandoned for a few decades with minimal economic impact. The only one that really can't be addressed this way is mercury, most specifically mercury in the oceans. And that is because mercury keeps getting emitted in developing countries that just don't care about emissions.
Wait, you think that the acid from acid rain is still causing severe harm in regions where NOx and SO2 emissions have been taken care of?
No. Your reading comprehension is just very poor.
And you think that discovering subsurface black rock that burns is easier than observing that fallen tree branches float and maybe tie a few together to make a raft?
Capitalism without any sort or moral structure destroys itself.
I agree, it probably does. The questions are, though, how long will that take, and how much collateral damage will occur in the meantime? Also doesn't help if the government doesn't punish corporations for being bad, or worse, encourages them.
Trollololol. GTFO.
A realistic world? Sure, in a country with very strict regulations, this could have been a solved problem, but in places like the US or China, it is not, despite the technological means. Blame the crooks in your society on it if you will.
Ezekiel 23:20
Well, then we will certainly get on well.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The world you're describing is diametrically opposed to any kind of observable reality. In real world, when you generate a solution for the problem that needs lack of this solution to persist, the problem either goes away entirely, or becomes small enough to be irrelevant.
Example: vaccination and mumps, measles and rubella. Just because some people don't vaccinate, and in some regions vaccines aren't used doesn't mean that problem of complications associated with mumps, measles and rubella infections haven't been solved.
Feel free to elaborate.
Capitalism without any sort or moral structure destroys itself.
That would be in a similar way to which a nuclear bomb destroys itself.
Likewise the damage is not limited to the bomb...
Capitalism without any sort or moral structure destroys itself.
I agree, it probably does. The questions are, though, how long will that take, and how much collateral damage will occur in the meantime? Also doesn't help if the government doesn't punish corporations for being bad, or worse, encourages them.
What happens is Capitalism is destroyed and turned into corporatism as soon as the market selects a winner. The issue with greed is that the winners are often endowed with huge amounts of greed, and do not want competition, and want nothing less than total control.
The problem with that kind of pathological greed is that it has no concept of when to stop. It wants all of the money. Instead of harnessing the greed for good, it wants to gut those that initially supported it.
If the USA continues on it's present path, after the most greedy are finished turning the country into a bananna Republic, they will turn on each other. there is no money to take from the poor any more at that point.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Capitalism without any sort or moral structure destroys itself.
That would be in a similar way to which a nuclear bomb destroys itself.
Likewise the damage is not limited to the bomb...
Kinda. But if there is a throttle, it can be harnessed.
Just like a car engine. run it wide open, and it is finished after a short time. With a nice throttle, it can run a long time.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Not if you can't read
So you've got nothing. Ok. Thank you for conceding.
Your ignorance of history is your embarrassment, not my problem.
https://www.historyanswers.co....
Listen ASSHOLE, there was NO REASON TO BRING RACE INTO THIS. Fuck the fuck off.
Good, good. Let the capitalist butthurt flow through you.
There was also the publicly traded British East India company that spend a few hundred years invading and occupying India. There were the publicly traded coal companies that paid their workers starvation wages - in company scrip that could only be redeemed at company stores. Or the publicly traded companies that sold asbestos or cigarettes long after they knew the health effects while lying to the public, the publicly traded war contractors that make robot planes that blow up children....could go on all day.
Capitalism, like colonialism, is one of the worst inventions mankind has ever produced. Facts.
I've read plenty of articles about surface deposits of coal.. But regardless, we're both speculating..
Yes - they definitely exist. But trees near bodies of water are way more plentiful. Probabilities are on the side of boats before coal.
Coal is subsidized to the tune of 22 trillion a year.
You are armed because you are a moron. Not all armed people are morons, it just happens you're one.
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)