I’m short on time this week, but Benny Peiser brings our attention to the latest energy revolution: coal!
I guess CO2 can’t be that great of a problem after all. At the Christian Science Monitor:
While regulation limits coal power in the US, Hunt writes that the energy source is on the rise in Europe.
A funny thing is happening on the way to the clean energy future. While the US government wages a regulatory war on coal fired generation, in Europe, the land of the oh so politically correct the drive for greenhouse gas emissions reduction is meeting a new competitor—reality!
The EU emissions trading scheme had fallen on hard times […] it was not the transformation some had hoped to achieve.
Then the Japan earthquake and tsunami sends Europe into a frenzy over the safety of nuclear power and Germany announced major closures of its nuclear fleet. The Greens hoped killing off nuclear would give them a two-fer—less nuke and more renewables.
The German government policy is to encourage construction of 10 gigawatts of coal fired generation to displace aging nuclear plants and provide baseload backup for wind and solar power. Worldwide coal plant construction grew 5.4% over the past year according to BP and now represents about 30% of installed capacity. …
Lubos Motl says that new coal power plants are needed to drive the demand for carbon credits so that the people who have bets on them can recoup their losses.
And he points out that a planned economy always produces such unlogical results.
http://motls.blogspot.de/2012/09/eu-carbon-market-will-be-saved-by-new.html
It looks like insolvent German PV maker Q-Cells has renamed to PVQ GLOBAL; chunks of the company sold to the Chinese.
Solibro (400 employees), daughter of Q-Cells, sold to Hanergy Holding Group .
Q-Cells/PVQ Global (1550 employees) itself is destined to be sold to S Korean Hanwha. (1250 will keep their jobs for the moment)
I thought that these new coal plants were being “sold” as essential backup for wind turbines. It raises the question as to how much backup you really need. The common claim is that each MW of wind need (X)% amount of backup, where X is usually said to be 100.
You cannot rely on wind, so conventional generation has to be able to supply 100% of the grid’s maximum demand. These new coal fired stations will have to replace nuclear stations, but beyond that are they needed?
Wind is an addition to that 100% capacity. If you use it, you have to cut supply from the conventional stations, something hard to do with either nuclear or coal, so more wind capacity has to be accompanied by more gas or hydro.
If German energy planning is logical, then shortly there must be a switch to coal seam gas, or a large issue of certificates to the coal stations. In either case I don’t think that investing in carbon credits is a sure way to prosperity.
German energy planning is hand-to-mouth, driven by panic.
[…] Coal Makes A Comeback In Europe – CO2 Not So Bad After All! […]