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74% of US Coal Plants Threatened by Renewables, But Emissions Continue To Rise (arstechnica.com)

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report this week saying that in 2018, "global energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7 percent to 33 Gigatonnes." That's the most growth in emissions that the world has seen since 2013. From a report: Coal use contributed to a third of the total increase, mostly from new coal-fired power plants in China and India. This is worrisome because new coal plants have a lifespan of roughly 50 years. But the consequences of climate change are already upon us, and coal's hefty emissions profile compared to other energy sources means that, globally, carbon mitigation is going to be a lot more difficult to tackle than it may look from here in the US.

Even in the US, carbon emissions grew by 3.1 percent in 2018, according to the IEA. (This closely tracks estimates by the Rhodium Group, which released a preliminary report in January saying that US carbon emissions increased by 3.4 percent in 2018.) "By country, China, the United States, and India together accounted for nearly 70 percent of the rise in energy demand," Reuters wrote.

16 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Ah must be all that by ruddk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Clean coal they are talking about. :’D

  2. FUD stats... by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The lightweight article referred to above has links to a more thorough article that gets to the important details (https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/march/global-energy-demand-rose-by-23-in-2018-its-fastest-pace-in-the-last-decade.html)

    The issue here is that the demand for electricity increased by a large percentage in the US, China and India. Obviously something has to ramp up to meet those demands. In the US that was primarily natural gas, the usage of which increased by 10% in 2018. China is using coal to meet their increased power demands.

    So why is power consumption increasing? The article above said a significant portion was due to colder than normal winters and hotter than normal summers, thus requiring more power for heating and cooling. In the US petrochemical demand has increased due to trucking and industrial consumption. The economy is strong, growth is occurring, and that is fueled by energy.

    So the FUD here is that "emissions continue to rise" is not due to a shift back to coal, but the use of fossil fuels to meet a quick increase in energy demands. Solar, nuclear, wind, etc, cannot ramp up nearly as fast as gas and coal, because those plants already have spare capacity to meet peak demands. If the higher rate consumption continues then renewable sources will continue to grow to reach at least their previous percentage share of power generation.

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    Better known as 318230.
  3. Burn More On Purpose? by rtb61 · · Score: 2

    For some countries burning as much fossil fuel as possible works. Never ever forget the country most impacted by climate change and sea level rise will be the USA, no country will suffer as much as they do, the entire US east coast is under huge threat. Right now for those countries in conflict it makes sense to generate as much carbon dioxide as fast as possible, it's no like the USA will complain, they will help and in their insanity try to out compete you by producing even more carbon dioxide. All entirely silly but unfortunately much closer to reality than it should sanely be.

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    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    1. Re:Burn More On Purpose? by _merlin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Bangladesh will suffer the most - the whole country is basically at current sea level. They'll need to hold back the ocean Dutch-style or pack up and leave.

    2. Re:Burn More On Purpose? by Sique · · Score: 4, Informative
      The dutch dams work because of the special situation at the Dutch coast: a mudflat with tidal changes.

      Due to the special conditions around the North Sea (a small sea bordering an ocean) you have high tidal differences, which allows to empty the rivers during low tide and block the incoming seawater during high tide. The difference in height is up to ten feet at the Dutch coast, but only about one foot at Bangladesh's coast.

      The tidal changes work like a large natural water pump. The natural pump basically doesn't exist in Bangladesh with only one foot twice per day, and with one foot of sealevel rise, it is totally gone. Instead, Bangladesh would have to install large man-made water to get the water of the Ganges and the Brahmhaputra river out of the country and into the ocean.

      I always wonder when people bring up the Dutch dam system if they ever actually look how they work? And why they only exists along the North Sea and nowhere else on the globe? You would expect them to have been built alongside all coasts of the world, if they were an universally appliable concept. Alas, they aren't. They work because the Dutch coast is in fact a mudflat... the largest mutflat of the world. The Dutch dam system only works with mudflats. Everywhere else, it fails, becaue either, you don't have enough tidal changes, or because of the missing mudflats along the coast.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  4. Coal is dead by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Clean Natural gas is cheaper than even the raw dirty coal. Drill baby drill crowd produced so much of natural gas, the dig baby dig crowd got shafted.

    If the coal workers have any sense, they will support the Democrats and make sure they get the job of safely shutting down coal mines. There is enough work there to guarantee jobs for the coal workers till they retire. There is money for it from the bonds posted by the coal companies. Democrats will make sure those bonds are actually used to give jobs to the coal workers. If they go with the Republicans, the companies will self post, sign some papers, steal the bonds, and promptly declare bankruptcy after divvying up the money.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  5. Re: Sounds like a solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why would you gang up on 3rd world nations? These countries are just developing a middle class and billions of people are coming out of poverty. Its a shame you only look at it from a Western point of view.

  6. Not a surprise... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2, Informative

    The EU just abandoned their 2050 climate goals because there was no chance of reaching it. And Germany has seen coal use slightly rise over the last 10 years - no chance of meeting their own 2020 and 2030 commitments.

    The future isn't solar and wind (because it's not working); it's nuclear. That is the only way forward out of pollution and limited power.

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    1. Re:Not a surprise... by Freischutz · · Score: 2

      The EU just abandoned their 2050 climate goals because there was no chance of reaching it. And Germany has seen coal use slightly rise over the last 10 years - no chance of meeting their own 2020 and 2030 commitments.

      The future isn't solar and wind (because it's not working); it's nuclear. That is the only way forward out of pollution and limited power.

      Germany is set to phase out coal-fired power stations by 2038: https://www.ft.com/content/cfa... Both Nucear and Coal will be killed off by the free market for the simple reason that Nuclear and Coal are the two most expensive options available in terms of LCOE and the only remaining fossil full that can compete with terrestrial wind and solar in terms of cost-effectiveness is natural gas. Isn't the free market wonderful?

  7. Re: Sounds like a solution by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why would you gang up on 3rd world nations? These countries are just developing a middle class and billions of people are coming out of poverty. Its a shame you only look at it from a Western point of view.

    The primary emitters are China, India, and the USA. While they all have wealth-distribution and other issues, I'd hardly call them third-world. All three are spacefaring. All three have high-quality universities whose graduates make an impact all over the globe. All three have considerable and unique contributions to world culture and knowledge.

    Don't get me wrong, third-world nations should be given support. But you're making a mistake when you claim the OP wants to "gang up" on third-world nations. China, India, and the USA are the "couple counties" the OP suggest the rest of the world should "gang up" on.

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  8. Technically by Texmaize · · Score: 2

    Technically, coal is going down, but it goes to natural gas. So, title is sorta misleading https://www.statista.com/stati...

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    "Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
  9. Us coal went down by WindBourne · · Score: 2

    According to rhodium's us report, CO2 from coal went down. In fact, co2 from our cars went down as well, in spite of moving some new sales to trucks/SUV. CO2 from electricity sourced by nat. Gas is what went up the most. The other was semis and jet aircrafts due to our economy booming. But coal plants are not threatened by renewables. They continue to be threatened by nat gas and wind. Solar is not making a dent yet. Right now, the GOP is working on rewriting regs/subsidies dealing with nuclear power. Hopefully, this will make inroads.

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  10. Re: Sounds like a solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    China would be a second world nation as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd world designations have nothing to do with standard of living in those nations.
    1st world is the US and allied nations mostly following capitalist economic policies
    2nd world was the Soviet Union and other nations within it's sphere of influence, mostly following communist economic policies (China is more 2nd world than Any of the nations that made of the former Soviet Union are today).
    3rd World are those nations outside the direct influence of either the 1st or 2nd world Super Powers
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

  11. Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Do you know how much work there is shutting down the coal mines safely? All those tilings left behind. Mine shafts to be systematically closed and sealed, lest some random soccer team gets lost in there. All those toxic ponds of pumped water to be safely disposed off. These are all green jobs. The coal companies posted bonds to do the clean up. Or have self bonded. There are just 50,000 coal workers left. And we need them. They are the only ones skilled enough, trained enough to do the job. None of the coal workers want their kids to get into coal mining. They really don't want the coal mines to operate in perpetuity. All they want is a honest job with honest pay till their retirement.

    Orderly shutting down of coal mines would do the job, has the money for it. But you can trust Republicans to play up the emotions, steal all the bond money posted by the coal companies and leave the workers high and dry, and the taxpayers with the clean up bill.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  12. Re:Global CO2 levels continue to rise by Freischutz · · Score: 2

    YEAH!

    And it's not from the coal we're burning in the US! Even with the coal we burn, we're DOWN, year over year.

    Look at China and India though.

    This is where the global rise is coming from.

    Yes but in terms of raw tonnage of CO2 emissions it's the US and China that matter by far the most. The US and China emit more CO2 put together than the entire rest of the top 20 list of CO2 emitters put together including India: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/d... If you consider the populations behind the slices on that pie chart the US emissions are simply staggering.

  13. Re:You lie like a WindBourne. by Luckyo · · Score: 2

    He read the actual data. Summary is intentionally misleading.