At least 6 major countries, including Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland, have all recently -- several within the past few weeks --
announced the imminent phase-out of all coal-fired power plants. Electrek reports:
Earlier this week, Canada, which has already significantly reduced its use of coal to about 7% of its energy generation, announced a phase of the resource by 2030. The country's strong hydropower should keep dominating its energy generation, but the country has also been investing in wind and solar to make up the difference. A week before Canada's announcement, France announced a more aggressive timeline of 2023 for its own phase-out of coal, but it should be more easily achievable since they have already reduced the use of coal to 3% of their electricity generation -- thanks to a strong local nuclear industry. Finland is the latest country to join the group, but it also announced a more aggressive solution of simply banning entirely the use of coal to produce energy by 2030. The country gets about 12% of its electricity from coal, which it has to import. Peter Lund, a researcher at Aalto University and chair of the energy program at the European Academies' Science Advisory Council,
told New Scientist: "These moves are important forerunners to enforce the recent positive signals in coal use. The more countries join the coal phase-out club, the better for the climate as this would force the others to follow." As for the U.S., it gets about 33% of its total electricity generation from coal and will likely grow the coal industry rather than phase it out under President-elect Donald Trump.
Re: More of a 2012 hope than a 2008 hope, though.
By Imrik
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2016-Nov-26 01:25
• Score: 4, Informative
• Thread
Coal power generates significant radioactive waste.
Re:Coal to grow in the USA??
By Xyrus
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2016-Nov-26 01:53
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
quote: "As for the U.S., it gets about 33% of its total electricity generation from coal and will likely grow the coal industry rather than phase it out under President-elect Donald Trump."
I don't believe it.
The coal business is dying from natural causes in the USA, and I don't think there's anything Trump can possibly do to turn that around...
There's plenty he could do. Look at corn based ethanol as an example. It's not cost effective. It's barely energy positive (if at all). Yet thanks to the mighty corn lobby, that's where our ethanol comes from even though there are plenty of better sources.
With a big enough lobby with deep enough pockets just about anything is possible.
Re:"Likley grow" - Bullshit
By Jumperalex
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2016-Nov-26 01:54
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
No thanks. I'd rather we have public policy that favors low / no carbon energy sources. Believe it or not, we DO get to pick winners in that regard so long as we don't pick WHICH low/no carbon source and don't pick which company is going to do it. But we 100% can decide to incentivize environmentally friendlier options that have longer term viability than pulling it out of the ground. Especially when there exists an entrenched system actively resisting competition and resists the internalization of external costs.
Energy storage and HVDC transmission
By presidenteloco
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2016-Nov-26 02:20
• Score: 5, Interesting
• Thread
"Wind and solar are viable, they just don't lessen the needed amount of fossil fuel capacity needed"
I call bullshit. We could put in HVDC transmission lines (Max distance around 3500km or 83% of the width of the contiguous United States) running from east to west and north to south. Those lines are each longer than a weather system is big, so you ship wind power from windy areas to calm areas that need power, and from sunny daylight areas to dark or cloudy areas that need power.
For the rest of the balancing needed, we could, for example, put in one gigantic hydrogen electrolysis and storage and fuel cell generator facility in the geographic center of the country. It would only be 30% round-trip efficient (energy out compared to energy in) however then you just need to install three times the wind and solar you would otherwise need, and Bob's your Uncle. If you don't want to do that, use a bunch of large compressed air storage facilities http://energystorage.org/advan... running at 70% round-trip energy efficient.
And if you still don't want to do very large storage for some reason, then tap into the enormous geothermal energy rersources under the US. Way more than enough energy for the country's needs there. No GHG emissions.
How about a combination of all these strategies. The technology is there. The price is becoming reasonable, and a small and not too punitive carbon tax would make it economical to build all this new infrastructure fast. We just need to get off our asses and do it.
An idiot wrote this
By WindBourne
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2016-Nov-26 06:10
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
America has been shutting down coal plants since Obama came to office. However, it NOTHING to do with regulations from him. It had to do with the fact that Nat Gas and wind are MUCH CHEAPER than coal is here. Combine that with all coal plants having to have ZERO mercury emissions.
Coal WAS 33% in 2015. Coal is now down to 27% of America's electricity. and for 2017, should be around 20-24%.
In addition, only idiots will think that trump can bring back coal (yes, he promised, but again, only idiots believe that). WHy is this so? Because coal is TOO EXPENSIVE compared to nat gas and wind. IN addition, with the new nukes that will be on-line and tested in the next 4 years, these will replace MORE of our coal plants.
The real question is less about Western nations, and more about CHina.
China currently gets either 75 or 88% of their electricity from fossil fuel (depends on which chinese gov group gives you information).
They currently have around 1.2TW of coal capabilities, and are building out 35-50 GW of new coal plants EACH YEAR. Even this year, they will do 35 GW.
Around the year, 2030. they will have 1.9-2 TW of coal plant capabilities and only then will they quit building new coal plants.
Even if the ENTIRE west, including Japan and South Korea, shuts down 100% of our coal plants, that is actually less than 1TW. So, China will build out ~3/4 of what the west has. Unless that stops, nothing we do will matter.
The far left has to quit ignoring science and numbers and start hammering on CHina FOR REAL. In addition, so does the entire western gov.