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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.
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.
Clean coal they are talking about. :’D
L'Idiot
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.
Better known as 318230.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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.
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.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact