Despite the trillion-dollar campaign aimed at curbing fossil fuels, the use of coal continues to rapidly expand and is acting to finally pull undeveloped countries out of extreme grinding poverty.
Investors Business Daily (IBD) here reports “coal use is surging across the globe“, citing the National Academy of Sciences, which says there’s an “unmistakable coal renaissance under way” and that coal “has again become ‘the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale.'”
Hat-tip: AndyG55
The NAS study shows coal use is expanding strongly in poor Asian countries like India and China, mainly because of its high affordability. IBD writes: “In sum, using coal is a stepping stone to prosperity.”
The IBD site adds that 1,200 coal plants are planned across 59 countries, that coal use around the world has grown about four times faster than renewables, and that China’s reliance upon coal will keep growing:
And according to U.S. government projections, China will add yet another U.S. worth of coal plants over the next 10 years, or the equivalent of a new 600-megawatt plant every 10 days for 10 years.”
The IBD blasts the Obama Adminstration’s plan to cut back on coal use in the USA, writing that the President is living in a “dreamland” and that “the rest of the world has no intention of following Mr. Obama’s act of economic masochism” and that the plan “will cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs” and “the poor will be hurt most“.
Strangely despite surging coal consumption, global temperatures have not risen in close to two decades. Consequently the once highly ballyhooed global warming theory is crumbling,
Read more at Investor’s Business Daily.
One coal fired power station gives more electricity than a thousand windmills.
Standby for sod!
“sod” is like one of his unreliables. He goes to sleep when the sun goes down.
About 6000 windmills should do though, ON AVERAGE, assuming 1GW coal power plant, 2.5 MW wind turbines with 17% load factor, which is the German average.
Well of course MOST of the time the wind turbines would deliver much too little, and occasionally they would deliver a multiple of what’s needed.
Sounds perfect!
And you wait until the African countries wake up to the fact that they have been conned.
They almost certainly have large undiscovered coal reserves, and as they strive to bring themselves up to first world living standard, the use of coal will continue to expand..
and the biosphere will love it !! 🙂
A bit of further research seems to indicated that African nations are more likely to go down the fracking route.
Several areas seem to be being investigated with this in mind, with large coal-gas seams being found in many places.
Still.. its all CO2, and great for the planet. 🙂
Andy, FWIW, in my line of work we have a lot going on in southern Africa, so I’m down there pretty regularly. It’s one of the best places in the world right now, since they have shaken off the fifty-or-so years wasted on “Afro-Marxism” and are trying to do what the Asian Tigers did in the second half of the 20th century while they were wasting time. Something like six of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa.
If there’s anyplace on Earth that offers the best-possible conditions for “solar power,” it would be the desert countries of southern Africa – though, of course, even in the desert the sun doesn’t shine at night. However, they aren’t stupid down there. It’s wonderful to sit in development meetings where the “Europeans” waddle in and insist that the Africans need to go with solar, wind, bio-mass, etc., etc. – and the Africans just laugh at them. (What faux-play in “renewables” (sic) goes on is largely based on EU subsidy-monies that have to be used for that.)
On the energy front, you’re right – there’s a lot of news in recent years. Uganda has found that it has sizable oil reserves, for example, and Namibia is one of the largest uranium-producers in the world (and plans to start building its own fission-based generation plants). But the biggest news is a set of natural gas finds off the coast of Mozambique that are enormous. This will be a big deal – since not only is natural gas a good primary energy source for thinks like household and industrial use and also for electricity production, but it is also a feedstock for fertilizer and industrial chemicals.
Part of the awfulness of the “green agenda” is that it demands that the poor-but-aspiring parts of the world give up their aspirations and remain poor. But anyone with an ounce of sense knows that the “green agenda” is the province of well-off neurotics (who didn’t earn their well-off status) – and won’t be signing on to support it.
Kenya is building a huge wind farm, with an astonishing capacity factor (?!?), which people here should love. That one wind farm alone will provide 20% of the countries power.
http://qz.com/444936/kenya-is-building-africas-biggest-wind-energy-farm-to-generate-a-fifth-of-its-power/
Ghana is building a huge solar farm and the advantage to the people of Africa is simple: those renewable plants start their output much faster than conventional mega plants do.
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Africa-s-largest-solar-power-plant-to-be-built-in-Ghana-353642
I am glad for the people of Africa. Many of them has understood, that the fossil fuel industry just wants to make more money out of them.
“Kenya is building a huge wind farm, with an astonishing capacity factor ”
roflmao.. is building? and they say enormous capacity factor…
Someone has been sucked in yet again !!!
So you are glad that Ghana will be able to use electricity during a small part of the day.. but not at night.
Very useful without any backup !! NOT!
“that the fossil fuel industry just wants to make more money out of them.”
And of course the solar subsidy hunters don’t.
Oh, you poor naïve little sod.
Africa is now so rich that they can pay 10 times the normal price for electricity, like Germans do?
And you are glad for Africa that they can afford this luxury electricity?
You are so deluded you could be in the SPD.
AndyG55:
For astonishing capacity factor read unbelievable (except by sod) capacity factor.
I wouldn’t waste your time arguing with him, facts never penetrate. Like “renewables will take over soon as fossils fuels die out” won’t be replaced by “59 countries are building or planning 1200 coal fired power stations”.
“And of course the solar subsidy hunters don’t.”
the “solar subsidy hunters” are a huge group of people. While the fossil fuel industry will be at best a small group of companies, possibly it is just one and most likely a company that is not based in the country it is “milking”.
solar power was just a stupid example, as vast amounts of the “profit chain” of solar will be inside the country deploying it and it will be spread over a huge group of people.
It is just the utter opposite of the fossil fuel concept.
“the “solar subsidy hunters” are a huge group of people”
They most surely are !!!
sod 10. August 2015 at 9:30 AM | Permalink
“the “solar subsidy hunters” are a huge group of people. While the fossil fuel industry will be at best a small group of companies, possibly it is just one and most likely a company that is not based in the country it is “milking”.”
You probably have not heard yet of that newfangled, 450 year old invention called “publically traded company”.
I will start by giving some context first. Or has anyone taken a look at the original paper?
” If future economic growth of poor countries is fueled mainly by coal, ambitious mitigation targets very likely will become infeasible. Building new coal power plant capacities will lead to lock-in effects for the next few decades. If that lock-in is to be avoided, international climate policy must find ways to offer viable alternatives to coal for developing countries. ”
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/E3775.abstract
The Investors Business Daily is written by Stephen Moore who is a leading economist at the Heritage foundation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Moore_%28economist%29
Quoting him, is like when i use greenpeace as a source.
Whoever he works for or whoever he is does not alter the FACTS that he is reporting in his piece.
The problem is, that he is not reporting facts.
The facts are in the original scientific paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/E3775.abstract
What he is doing, is giving it some extreme right wing spin, which basically changes the whole message of what was achieved by the original research.
The original research basically says: Coal is cheap (that is not good news for coal, btw!!!). This might be a problem, so alternative power needs to over achievable alternatives to growing countries.
The Moore piece is turning coal into a “stepping stone to prosperity”. That is total garbage, for example for countries which do not have their own coal. For them coal (and gas and diesel) are mostly stepping stones towards dependence and poverty.
“Coal is cheap (that is not good news for coal, btw!!!)”
Well I guess it’s great news for solar power then.
You live in such a twisted world, sod.
“Quoting him, is like when i use greenpeace as a source.”
Stephen Moore though does not seem to sell “organic” olive oil laced with dioxin.
http://www.torontofreepress.com/2001/0001a3.htm
“Building new coal power plant capacities will lead to lock-in effects for the next few decades.”
Good, because China, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Poland have built and are all building PLENTY of NEW coal fired power stations.
The atmospheric CO2 recharge from the abysmally low level its been at, will continue apace for many, many years to come. 🙂
Those countries that don’t increase their RELIABLE energy supply systems are doomed to economic backwardness.
there is really interesting news from the Adanai coal mine project in Australia. even the banks are moving away from the project.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-33815059
Those supporting coal exports in Australia have only a single argument: If it is not australian coal being imported in India and China, some other country will provide the coal.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/11/australia-coal-idUSL3N10M1ZG20150811
But in the real world, India and China might actually not import coal after 2020, which would leave the assets invested in a huge new coal mine (including over 100 km of railroad to transport the coal) stranded.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/11/carmichael-mines-new-hurdle-analysts-predict-indias-coal-imports-zero-by-2021
The simple truth is, that solar power in India is cheaper than imported coal. so huge investments might just not be a good idea, especially as the price of coal is low and might stay low, when china and india do little importing.
“The simple truth is, that solar power in India is cheaper than imported coal.”
Well, as you manage to tell us in ONE comment that
a) coal prices are crashing
b) solar power in India is cheaper than importing coal
I wonder whether a) has already invalidated b)… And I’m actually too lazy to look for the financiers of that “report”…
For your education; India only recently started net importing of coal. Most of their coal consumption is from own production.
http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.cfm?iso=IND
But, any story to beat that dead horse renewables boom, right?
” And I’m actually too lazy to look for the financiers of that “report”…”
The report is from a somewhat pro-renewables source. The full report is here:
http://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IEEFA-Indian-Electricity-Sector-Transformation-August-2015.pdf
The problem is the data, which just supports what the report says.
Bloomberg runs a headline: “Coal revival seen fading”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-12/coal-revival-seen-fading-as-india-s-rising-output-trims-imports
That article (from a pro-business source) says the opposite of what this discussion is focused on.
A real problem are also banks backing out of the coal business, like in Australia:
“Thursday’s announcement by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) that it was no longer providing financial advice to Adani on the project strengthened doubts about the financial viability of what would have been one of the world’s biggest coal mines. ”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-33815059
So the problem is not with the source of the information, instead this is a real coal business problem.
Well let’s just stop subsidizing solar then and see how solar power conquers the world all on its own.
well does obama forbid to export us coal?
Capacity factor has nothing to do with type or generation of windmill or windfarm. It is exclusively determined by wind statistics.
“Capacity factor has nothing to do with type or generation of windmill or windfarm. It is exclusively determined by wind statistics.”
That is utterly false!
”
The capacity factor of a windfarm is a design decision. Shocking, eh?”
http://energynumbers.info/capacity-factor-of-wind
The length of the blades decides about wind CF.
Complete BS. Currrent designs already are close to or on the theoretical limit presented by Betz’s law. The only way you can use vane length is to shorten it, which indeed changes the capacity factor but by limiting maximum output of a windmill. At low wind speeds the output still goes to zero in step with all the other windmills. You appear to know not a lot about this technology. Your link is useless.
“The length of the blades decides about wind CF.”
So, Albert already mentioned Betz; so I’ll just take Sod’s Law seriously-
Sod, CF has DROPPED in Germany from somewhere in the 20ies to 17 % now – while blades got longer.
So, is Sod’s Law saying that newer bigger windturbines are LESS efficient?
In that case, why are the subsidy hunters making their contraptions LESS efficient?
Unfortunately, sod did not fall for my trap about vane length. If you want to do something about CF, the only thing you can do is to limit maximum windmill output power. Of course, that causes the windmill to produce less output power at high wind speeds, making it terribly inefficient because output power is proportional to the cube of wind speed.
By limiting output power – smaller generator, or electronic regulation – you have an improved CF, at the cost of much reduced efficency.
Sod’s law, isn’t it?
Ah, I get it.
Sod said
“The capacity factor of a windfarm is a design decision. Shocking, eh?”
He’s right. The evaluation function that the subsidy hunters use is not an optimized capacity factor or maximum energetic efficiency; but maximal monetary efficiency; i.e. a maximization of the INTEGRAL of the curve, no matter the amplitude of the fluctuations.
As this integral is maximal when the fluctuations are maximal, the German FIT law is designed to maximize power fluctuations.