By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: The bankruptcy of the world’s largest non-government-owned coal company illustrates one of the two big weaknesses in the nightmarish climate change scenario that dominates the headlines. It takes us even further off the path to the RCP8.5 scenario behind those stories, onto one going to a far better future.
Climate forecasts (called “projections” by the IPCC) rely on two key factors. First, the scenario — a forecast of future emissions, must be accurate. Second, the model must accurately predict temperatures for that scenario. Previous posts have shown climate scientists’ reluctance to test their models using the decades of data after their publication. Recent events highlight that the second factor is also important.
The nightmarish predictions of climate change that dominate the news almost all rely on the most severe of the four scenarios used by the Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC’s most recent: RCP8.5. It describes a future in which much has gone wrong (details here), most importantly…
- a slowdown in tech progress (coal is the fuel of the late 19th century, as it was in the late 19thC), and
- unusually rapid population growth (inexplicably, that fertility in sub-Saharan Africa does not decline or crash as it has everywhere else).
Looking at such scenarios, however unlikely, is vital for planning. Sometimes we get unlucky. But presenting such outcomes without mentioning their unlikely assumptions misleads readers and puts the credibility of science itself at risk. Which is climate science today.
Why burning coal might become as common as burning cow dung
Coal is dirty and dangerous to mine, moderately expensive to transport (by train or barge), and dirty to burn. When natural gas prices drop below $3 per thousand cubic feet (i.e., per 100 thousand BTU), coal becomes uneconomical. In 2002 much of the US coal industry was sliding to bankruptcy. It was rescued by the energy boom, which produced fracking — which crashed natural gas prices and trashed the coal industry. In a Sept 30 report Moody’s analyst Anna Zubets- Anderson said that half of the world’s coal production is uneconomic at then-current prices (gated report; news story). Now 90% of US coal production is uneconomic vs. natural gas.
Will coal be the fuel of the future? Growth in output from renewable energy sources and a crash in natural gas prices (from fracking) have sent a long and growing list of coal companies to bankruptcy court as both prices and volume tumbled.
The result: Several score smaller companies died in 2012-2014, and then the large ones began to roll over.
- Patriot Coal, July 2012 and again in May 2015 — 12th largest US producer.
- Walter Energy, July 2015 — 17th largest US producer.
- Alpha Natural Resources, August 2015 — 4th largest US producer.
- Arch Coal, January 2016 –2nd largest US producer.
- Peabody Coal, April 2016 — The world largest non-government owned coal company.
US coal production in 2015 dropped 18% from that of 2011. US coal mines were running at 70% of capacity (before closings, which were substantial and increasing). After each bankruptcy coal mining capacity drops as unprofitable and marginal mines are closed. Once the miners leave an area and rail lines to the mine are removed (the land is often valuable), reopening mines range from difficult to almost impossible.
The climate change difference: shifting from coal to natural gas
From EIA, 16 March 2016.
The US crash in coal has largely resulted from a shift to natural gas. From 1970 to 2007 the annual production of natural gas in US was roughly 20 trillion cubic feet; since then it has risen to 29 trillion in 2015 (per EIA). The EIA predicts that in 2016 we’ll burn more natural gas than coal.
Does this make a different to climate change? Yes! Burning coal to produce a million BTUs of energy produces an average of 210 pounds of CO2; burning natural gas to do so produces 117 pounds of CO2 (coal produced and CO2 emitted per EIA) — a reduction of 45%!
More competition for coal lies ahead
Tri Alpha Energy’s fusion device.
A host of new energy sources are under development. Improvements in solar, wind, and geothermal — plus potentially larger innovations in nuclear and fusion. For example, Tri Alpha Energy has raised over $150 in private capital — from people looking for a profit in the near future (not in 2100) — to fund its 150 employees and the many patents they have filed. Here’s a presentation from 2012 describing their device, and an August 2014 article from Science about the project — and the accompanying video…
Conclusions
The horrific coal-burning late 21st century described by RCP8.5 provides a valuable warning that we have to push technological progress for any hope of a better world. Representing it as a “business as usual” future is absurd — and materially misleading. But doing so has become business as usual for climate scientists and journalists — as documented here. That this scam has persisted so long is not surprising for journalists, but shows a deep dysfunctionality in climate science.
We can force reforms. We can end the climate policy wars: demand a test of the models.
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..” a slowdown in tech progress (coal is the fuel of the late 19th century, as it was in the late 19thC). ”
Did I miss something or should there be a 20th Century in there somewhere ?? Just curious !
” Does this make a different to climate change? ” You really need to proof read your silly posts ! Should be ” Difference ” not ” different “!
This post is another fine example of the unthinking repetition of the talking points of the brainless.
Not all “coals” are equal of course. The author must be talking about “thermal” coal, the one with less carbon in it! I presume he also imagines BS* will magically replace the coking coal that is indispensable in the manufacture of Iron and Steal!
*Cow dung
Could be a slip Freudian but I’m sure I typed steel not steal! 😉
Marcus,
Good catch on both of these!
I just threw this together. I feel a sense of futility in writing about the alarmists’ mendacious propaganda campaign, journalists’ complicit broadcasting of it, and the more-or-less acceptance of it by skeptics (who appear to prefer a fun focus on technical details — of zero interest to the public — and unlikely-to-be-believed conspiracy theories about climate scientists).
Despite the importance of this public policy debate, I find it difficult to write seriously about this theater of the absurd — especially since I doubt it will end well for us.
Larry,
Your points to Marcus seem fair enough but can you try not to give ammunition to the propaganda machine by rehashing their debauched terms. The real issues aren’t even debated; the dumbed down talking points make sure of that.
What is obscene about these insipid arguments is the shear scale of the coal production in China.
China is by far the biggest producer in the world with 3,650 million tonnes (47% of the global total), making Australia’s* 431.2 million tonnes, look like a joke.
And Australia is the world’s second largest exporter (By proportion of production) with around 375 million tonnes exported annually.
*Australia is the fifth largest producer of coal in the world.
1. The US has a president whose on-the-record and stated aim is to bankrupt the coal industry there.
2. It is without question that the west is being de-industrialised. Manufacturing and jobs are being off-shored to the east.
3. Asia is massively expanding the use of coal in all its forms.
4. The Chinese are opening up their own new coal mines in Australia and despite the slump in prices, production continues apace*.
*Price actually has less meaning today in this globalised economy of artificial financial control.
Editor wrote: “and unlikely-to-be-believed conspiracy theories about climate scientists”
The conspiracy is real, it is not a theory. See Climategate emails for confirmations that major climate scientists were actively, deliberately conspiring with each other to distort the historic surface temperature record, so as to give the global warming theory credibility.
There is no doubt about it.
Whether some people believe it or not makes no difference.
“of zero interest to the public — and unlikely-to-be-believed conspiracy theories about climate scientists.”
How patronising of you.
Like many of your pompous, sneering, self-aggrandising ilk you consistently underestimate the mental capacity of the public or their interest in matters beyond the football scores. This says far more about you than it does about the public.
As to the “unlikely-to-be-believed conspiracy theories”, did you ever hear of Climategate? Did you read the emails – or were they above your intellectual level? No less an individual than John Kerry remarked that the affair was responsible for a substantial loss of credibility.
This is insane logic to apply to AGW. There is a 1/1×10^7 that we will experience catastrophic warming. Never is 600 million years has CO2 caused catastrophic warming, even when CO2 was 7,000ppm. A coming ice age is a 100% certainty. The argument they use works for preparing for an ice age, not further warming. BTW, the Fabius Maximus website will no longer allow me to post on its board because I challenge the AGW theory. You can read what posts I still have there and make your own decision if I should have been banned.
For the the record co2islife:
CO2 is indeed life.
..In reality, this planet is starving for CO2 !
I agree that CO2 at approximately 7,000 ppm with no catastrophic results is actual scientific evidence (but not proof) that CO2 will not warm the planet. Note that all CO2 increase comes after the planet warms first. CO2 follows warmth, and does not lead it. (do they still teach logic in academia?)
I also think that the boys at NASS/NOAA having to “cook the books” to hide the fact there has been no warming during the era of a fast rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is yet more evidence.
Steve Goddard has posted about a 75 year old publication by the Federal Government (US Ag Dept) which says:
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/global-warming-scam-has-been-dead-for-75-years/
I am not that old, but the professors that taught me physics and earth science would have been astonished at the CO2 delusion of today.
The important thing should be to find out what caused the Little Ice Age rather than cooking the books to plead that it never happened. Whatever can cause sudden cold is the dangerous thing. Whatever causes it to be nice and warm is a welcome thing.
CO2 does not warm the earth, but I sure wish it did!
The sad truth is we cancled the Shuttle Program to fund climate “science.” Those boys at NASA, the ones that once put a man on the moon, are now prostituting themselves to remain relevant and funded. JFK put those boys on the map, Obama took the best and brightest turned them to whores, selling themselves for their paychecks.
“No probable increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide could materially affect either the amount of insolation reaching the surface or the amount of terrestrial radiation lost to space.”
A bizarre use of that quote. Goddard has no idea about the greenhouse effect. The statement is true now, as it was then. CO2 does not block sunlight, and apart from a small initial dip while Earth is warming, CO2 does not change OLR. It can’t; at steady state we radiate what we receive.
Nick…
Goddard has no idea about the greenhouse effect………
“a 75 year old publication by the Federal Government (US Ag Dept) which says:”
“I agree that CO2 at approximately 7,000 ppm with no catastrophic results is actual scientific evidence (but not proof) that CO2 will not warm the planet.”
Sorry, Mark, but this is flawed logic.
7,000ppm without catastrophic results is only evidence that (much) higher CO2 need not be a bad thing.
In no way is it evidence that it doesn’t warm the planet.
I’m not saying it will (by much); and I agree that it has followed warming historically.
You are also right that colder is far worse than warmer.
It’s just that if you’re going to criticise other’s logic you’ll make a stronger case by being logical yourself.
Have a good one.
Phil’s Dad:
You quotes me: “I agree that CO2 at approximately 7,000 ppm with no catastrophic results is actual scientific evidence (but not proof) that CO2 will not warm the planet.”
You then commented: “Sorry, Mark, but this is flawed logic.”
No, it is not flawed logic. The higher levels of CO2 in the past that followed warming tend to support those of us who claim that CO2 does not warm the surface.
There have been flame wars here between the real skeptics and the luke-warmers, and I don’t want to get into all that. Let us just say that the “CO2 warms a lot” consensus is no worse than the “CO2 warms a little” consensus. In my view, both are refuted by evidence and also working from first principles of thermodynamics and physics.
So, while the temperature and CO2 concentration reconstructions do not prove anything (as I noted) they do tend to support my views.
Any frequent reader of this site should know that there is no credibility to the hypothesis that CO2 (any source) leads to “global warming”. Ice cores show that CO2 always follows Temperature, whether rising or falling.
QED – CO2 is not the control knob of temperature.
We already know that increased CO2 leads to increased vegetation, crop growth, and reduced water needs.
Coal is cheap (absent government regulations), abundant, and a reliable source for electricity production. Any reduction in coal use translates to increased cost/reduced reliability of electricity for the billions of poor in the world.
Any policy that makes coal more expensive, more regulated, or less useful is a policy that targets and harms the world’s poor
Period
Is the Pope a Catholic? Well, a poor one, and yet, not so poor.
==========
Co2 is Life,
“There is a 1/1×10^7 that we will experience catastrophic warming.”
So now we know what Spock did before he joined the Enterprise! What a marvelously precise and confidently-stated number.
Until everybody recognizes your accomplishment, I’ll just work with the assumptions used by the major climate agencies and governments’ of the world’s major nations. They clearly show the unlikely nature of the nightmare’s predicted in the headlines of the news media.
“What a marvelously precise and confidently-stated number. ”
It is called “snark” and makes for better reading than just dry academic writing.
“They clearly show the unlikely nature of the nightmare’s…”
I bet they know how to use apostrophes correctly too…
We have 600 million years of the geological record showing that never in 600 million years has CO2 resulted in catastrophic warming. Never. CO2 has been as high as 7000 ppm and temperatures never got above 22&Dec;C. We fell into an ice age when CO2 was 4000 ppm.
Why would you ever trust those organizations given the results of their models? Show me 1 single IPCC that accurately models temperature, let alone climate. While you are at it, show me anywhere over the past 600,000 years, that climate wasn’t changing? Show me an ice core data sets that shows stability ever.
I stand corrected, Fabius approved my recent post and actually gave me a “like.”
co2islife: “BTW, the Fabius Maximus website will no longer allow me to post on its board because I challenge the AGW theory.”
I got banned because I apparently disagreed with scientists.
Funny that, as I’ve worked with science and scientists for much of my career, and FM is AFAIK some sort of historian.
For those who forget, the USA is not the whole world.
I wonder if the author will be so pleased with no coal if the temperatures fall and there is insufficient baseload power to maintain the power grids in the increased demand? There are already thousands dying in winters due to energy poverty – I suppose the author finds that a cheering Malthusian thought too.
I don’t put that sort of pivot past the AGW/greens/Mathusian/socialists. In my mind, whatever yields the highest number of human deaths with the most government control and wealth redistribution, restrictions of free speech, and reversion to the stone age will be the path that these jerks will follow. The author will change his mind if required, shamelessly.
The author is projecting virtue and nothing more. Virtue projection, while not accomplishing anything, is well thought of in AGW circles. These circles are black holes to good intentions .
Say what?? Since when???
Since the O took office.
So where’s the rest of it? Except for a few announcements from CERN (when it works).
Yeah, but if CO2 is not important climate-wise, what’s the difference? One would agree that the other coal-based pollutants are worth avoiding. I watched a Hmong ten year old cooking the family lunch inside the hut on a dung fire some years ago (Laos). He’s probably one of the three million dead of lung disease by now. Bring on the coal fired power station.
“One would agree that the other coal-based pollutants are worth avoiding.”
Yes, I would definitely agree. That is a problem that needs to be addressed.
The coal industry is making some good progress in cleaning up their emmissions. It remains to be seen how clean they can get it.
1) The forecasts are extremely biased, and almost 100% overestimate the actual increase in temperature.
2) The original data doesn’t have the luxury of knowing the answer that may be desired in 10 years. That is why they won’t use original data, they don’t know the answer they will want in the future. You only alter the data once you know the answer that you want. In my field that is a criminal activity, in climate science that is a sound scientific practice. Using original data will disprove their theory, only ex post facto adjustments make this theory “valid.”
The article has a section headlined:
Since burning dung is very, very common in many parts of the world, and since dung is the main fuel source for millions of people, this headline just shows that the author is clueless about global energy …
w.
It was that phrase that completely threw me. I couldn’t see what the hell this author was trying to get to.
..His title is completely backwards !
Also he is clueless about the current policies of China and India to expand their power supply using indigenous coal. The problem with shale gas, which China has and probably India but not extensively surveyed, is how do you distribute it to the dung burners? Electricity is much more useful and cheaper to distribute. Here in the UK the core (urban) gas distribution network was built in the reign of Victoria (though renewed in the 1970’s with the change in the constitution of the gas).
That is where the future demand for coal will be, generation of electricity.
In passing, cow dung, at least in the UK, was neber in copious supply – I suspect that the gross problem in the third world is the shortage of wood, ended here 250 years ago by the use of coal.
North China and Mongolia have shale gas resources second only to the US according to USGS. It will take decades to build sufficient pipeline infrastructure to take significant advantage, however. So they build USC coal.
Peabody’s bankruptcy was mainly caused by two things. 1. Old inefficient US coal generation (average retirement age since 1990 is 48 years) shutting in favor of lower capital cost, faster to build, much more thermally efficient (61% vs 41% USC coal vs 34% old coal) and lower operating cost (thanks to abundant fracked natural gas) replacement CCGT. Their US market is shrinking. 2. High debt structure thanks to making a very unwise Australian coal acquisition for, IIRC, $2.5 billion in borrowed funds. Peabody’s underlying mines, especially in Wyoming’s Powder River basin, are still profitable. Strip mined, thick seam, low sulfur, low ash sub bituminous thermal coal still very desireable for the remaining US coal fleet.
disgenese,
“Also he is clueless about the current policies of China ”
China is frantically attempting to reduce their use of coal, but also simultaneously replacing their largely ancient coal-burning power plants. It’s a two tier approach to reducing their horrific air pollution while fueling their growing economy.
China’s statistics should be regarded skeptically, but data from recent years suggests that they’ve turned the corner in coal use. See “China coal consumption drops again” and “Statistics From China Say Coal Consumption Continues to Drop“.
Oooh! See, I knew that burning cow dung is pretty common, so I thought he was saying that burning coal would also be common — but yet, he wasn’t saying that and then I got really confused and had to have a sit-down.
I’m with ya. That headline threw me too – I kept looking for where coal will become as accessible as cow dung and that the poor will be burning coal??
I couldn’t finish the thing . . it was like some sort of carnival fun house for the mind . . without any fun . .
Thank-you, Willis. Coal is cheap and, in modern power plants, quite clean.
Removing coal will do nearly nothing for the environment and merely make life harder for people living in the communities that depend on coal for their livelihood.
And for those who want to shout about open pit mines, regard Mt. Saint Helens. Nature is far more destructive than humans, and these days we clean up our messes faster.
Willis,
“Since burning dung is very, very common in many parts of the world”
It’s common in some parts of the world (e.g., some rural areas of Africa and the Indian subcontinent) — but provides a microscopic share of the world’s energy. Which is what I was referring to.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus website April 17, 2016 at 9:49 pm
Larry, thanks for the reply. Your claim was NOT that dung “provides a microscopic share of the world’s energy”. Your claim was that it was not common … but in fact it is quite common. It is burned in Russia, China, Nepal, Bangladesh, in many African countries, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, lots of places. Heck, even here in the US we used to burn “cow chips” out on the prairie, and those times are not over, viz:
And while you are right that it is only a small part of worldwide energy use, in the areas where it is used it is often the only form of energy available to the poor … and that’s about as common as you can get.
w.
No I understand why Obama and the EPA didn’t crush fracking. I can’t pass up highlighting the irony of the nit wit environmentalists that want to stop fracking. If you stop fracking coal becomes economical again. Anti fracking is really pro-coal. Oh the irony.
https://youtu.be/NtD1JU-jhdY
Partly incorrect. Obama basically shut down fracking on federal land. But the Permian basin, the Fayetteville, Marcellus, Neobrara, and Utica gas shales aren’t on federal land. EPA tried a groundwater contamination frackmregulation approach on private land. That failed because there isn’t any from properly constructed wells. Now they are trying methane rules. What they will discover is that these wells don’t leak, either. Why waste stuff you want to sell?
The locations flare for many reasons, but a common one is to dispose of hydrogen sulfide, that rotten egg smell. Toxic as hell. You won’t smell it twice.
RM, nice picture of the Bakken OIL shale. The minor amount of coproduced volitiles (mostly methane, some butane and propane) isn’t worth building a pipeline collection system for. So it is flared, combusted into CO2 and water. Still no atmospheric methane for the EPA to fret about. Flaring is SOP wherever it doesn’t pay to collect the gas and it isn’t possible to reinject intomthe reservoir to maintain pressure. No shales can be reinjected. Hence Bakken is flared.
Natural gas shales by definition are worth building a gas pipeline collection system from the wellheads –if they are being fracked. That gas is scrubbed at some central collection point to remove any coproduced CO2 or H2S. Any other volatiles (again usually butane and propane) are removed for separate sale. Only ‘dry gas’ (essentially pure methane) is inserted into the commercial pipeline network. And that had better not leak either, cause boom if it does.
RM, if they are building a Bakken gas collection system it is because there is now enough (wells and gas) to make that economic.
You have never been around a drilling rig or oil/gas well, have you? I have. My grandfather was a leading petroleum geologist of his day. Nobody wants a Macondo. Not even a baby Macondo. Leaks are bad. Just in case, smoking is prohibited in the vicinity. Just common safety sense.
Get ready. Hillary wants to ban fracking. That’s one of her party platforms. If Trump gets the nomination, it’s a shew in for Hillary to become POTUS, I’m sad to say. That’s why Cruz is the only alternative. He would destroy her in the debates – providing that she will debate. She would probably be like Trump and be afraid to debate Cruz.
If you like Party Bosses picking the nominees, vote Cruz.
(PS~ I doubt heavily they will pick Mr. Cruz, though)
Just saw a news feed from Penn Energy. Alphabet Energy & Coyote (?) have developed a thermionic generator to recover the heat from those flares for local electric power that reduces the need for FF diesel engine generators. Find a need and fill it.
Coal is dirty and dangerous to mine, moderately expensive to transport (by train or barge), and dirty to burn.
This muddled and incorrect statement (layers upon payers of wrong!) is an excellent basis for an incoherent article.
“This muddled and incorrect statement (layers upon payers of wrong!) is an excellent basis for an incoherent article.”
What are the factual incorrections? Dirty to mine? Yes, especially if mountaintop removal is used, not to mention thousands if not 10s of thousands of miners who have gotten black lung disease. Dangerous? Yes, far more fatalities than arise from occur in natural gas or oil production. Moderately expensive to transport? Yes, compared to oil or natural gas pipelines. Dirty to burn? Yes, especially where scrubbers are not installed – scrubbers add substantial cost, and so are often not implemented in developing countries.
Coal consumption may be down because it’s being displaced by fracked natural gas but these ecogeniuses want to ban fracking too.
Many of the coal bankruptcies in the U.S. are “Chapter 11” in which the companies reorganize and discharge debt but retain some operations.
1) The models should be tested with original data
2) An open source temperature reconstruction and climate model campaign should be started
3) Climate “scientists” should be prosecuted for willfully misleading the public
4) An agency for policing the funding, granting and conclusions reached should be created. There is no SEC style watch dog to keep these people honest.
5) The unregulated utopia of the university will come crashing down when the iron fist or Federal oversight punches them in the face. All those big government liberals will become conservatives once they have the Federal Government looking into everything they do and have done.
All of academia will rue the day the criminal acts in the climate science departments is exposed. The math, economics, stats and physics departments will all suffer for their willful silence.
https://youtu.be/EH_Izul6J5M
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid decision or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
Thomas Sowell
Bingo!!!! x 10^1,000
+ many, it includes every person that gets by on OPM. They have no sense of responsibility and don’t give a sh,t!!!.
Typical existing coal fired Rankine cycle (water/steam) EGUs produce about 2,100 lb CO2 / MWh. EPA CPP’s fossil fired (both coal & NG) 2030 performance standard is 1,305 lb CO2 / MWh. Coal cannot do this w/o CCS. lb CO2 / MWh = (lb CO2 / E6) Btu (fuel composition) * (E6 Btu / MWh) (efficiency)
NG Rankine cycles produce about 1,100 lb CO2 / MWh. NG (It’s a fossil fuel!) Rankine can beat the CPP coal w/o any special action. Co-firing, converting coal to NG, building NG Rankine will all meet or exceed EPA’s 2030 performance standard. NG simple cycle EGUs cannot meet the 2030 standard of 771 lb CO2 / MWh, but they are small peakers.
Because a CCPP design (combined Brayton/Rankine cycles) has an efficiency of about 60% it produces about 650 lb CO2 / MWh. NG CCPP can also beat the CPP goal w/o action.
The entire point of EPA’s CPP is to cripple coal and encourage NG. Not exactly equal treatment under the law. Will see how the legal challenge goes.
States have the flexibility to meet their 2030 performance standard through any combination or aggregation of the EGUs in their jurisdiction. So retire a couple of old, inefficient coal units, build a few CCPPs, fuel swapping, etc. and the bigger newer coal burners can press on as usual. BTW, hydroelectric EGUs built before 2012 don’t count, are ineligible for inclusion in meeting the 2030 standards. Why is that?
And just what is the Clean Power Plan supposed to accomplish? A 32% reduction in CO2 output from US power generation (not just coal). The US is responsible for about 16% of the world’s CO2 output. Power generation represents about 31% of US CO2 production. Therefore – 16% * 31% * 32% = 1.6%. CPP will reduce the global C2 output by 1.6%. Whoopeee!! China and India will cancel that out with their next dozen coal fired power plants.
Nicholas
Re China: I see they are taking old plants offline and building much more modern, larger ones. It has the same effect as you describe. In 2040 they can take the new ones offline and put in the latest gadgetry for gasification and modified atmosphere combustion. Any carbon resource that cheap and plentiful is going to be used until it is gone. Then they will start going after the methane hydrates.
The big impact of the war on coal will be turning the US into the UK and handing the keys to the Jag to the East. So far the East hasn’t complained about their promotion.
China is also building nuke plans as fast as the can. It has nothing to do with CO2 or protecting the environment. China needs power.
….Cheap, affordable power, saves lives…..Coal Powered electricity = cheap, affordable power, thus, COAL POWER SAVES LIVES !…..PERIOD !
You’re right, it does.
Something I’ve been wondering about and have never come across is how much NG does the US have in proven reserves? It seems to me that we are burning more NG than ever before and that’s set to increase.
Unless we have it coming out of our ying-yang then it makes more sense to burn coal for electricity and leave the gas for household and industrial uses.
nigelf, directional answers. US was running down proven and probable gas reserves 2000-2005. Fracking gas shales has changed that dramatically. US has the worlds largest shale gas resource. China is probably second. Russia is not third, because the vast Bahzenov shale (both oil and gas) has been grossly mischaracterized by the EIA. Essay Matryoshka Reserves.
How much of the US shale gas resource in place can be converted to technically recoverable reserves (independent of price) is uncertain. Shales like the Utica are gas rich in the eastern 2/3, but have not been sufficiently drilled to make an estimate. USGS thinks many decades. I SWAG to at least 2100, even if remaining coal converts to CCGT as aging coal plants are replaced. Even if the European petrochemicals industry basically moves to the US as the North Sea and Groningen gas fields continue their decline. Even if we start exporting LNG in large quantities.
Look at it differently. We use the gas for CCGT because it’s cheaper, leaving all that lovely Powder River Basin low sulfur low ash coal in the ground. It will be there waiting for new USC coal plants if needed at some point many decades from now.
Canada’s in ground NG is huge, many people forget that Canada has one of the largest land masses on the planet , has the same geo as does the US, Russia and so on, it is right now being stopped by the eco nuts and of course the really difficult terrain just as Russia’s vast areas. The infra structure in the US is largely in place and have that advantage to keep their NG cheap. I can’t understand why in Britain there is the push back against fracking, fracking is safe and has been used for decades. The destruction of western nations is unbelievable.
My comments over on the Fabius website always end up in “Moderation” and are never removed. You be the judge is the comment is “inappropriate.”
You can read my posts that got me banned.Basically you can’t disagree on their site.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2016/03/07/testing-models-to-end-climate-wars-94671/
Mentioning WUWT is probably what did it. The pro alarmist sites appear to dismiss out of hand any comments that mention or link to information (regardless of original source) sites that question any part of the alarmist mantra.
CO2,
Your comments go to moderation because you tend to make stuff up. Ones that don’t are posted — such as that one was.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus website April 17, 2016 at 9:56 pm
Dear Editor:
I’d never been to your website, don’t know why, it just had a bad vibe to me from the various comments you’ve made here. Plus, your use of the grandiose title of “Editor of the Egotisticus Maximus Website” or whatever it is set my teeth on edge … you’re not an “Editor”, you’re just another bozo on this bus like the rest of us. It didn’t make me want to visit such an outpost of pomposity.
Now, I see that I was right. You are censoring comments just because you think they are “made up”, whatever that might mean to you.
Now, I’m no great fan of co2islife … but you’ll notice that he is free to post his ideas here. I don’t agree with them, but so what? This site exists to encourage discussion, not to stamp it out.
Why is he free to post here? Because we don’t set ourselves up as judge and jury regarding which comments are valid scientifically and which are not. In other words, we don’t censor comments because of a perceived lack of scientific validity … and you have just proudly stated that you do censor comments on that bogus basis.
In any case, hearing you announce that you censor views that you happen to disagree with puts you on the banned list in my book. I have no time for that kind of anti-scientific nonsense.
Please don’t expect any further discussion with me. I don’t have any truck with people who censor other people—in my book, that is scientific malfeasance of the highest order.
w.
Make stuff up? Please provide any example and allow me to defend/explain it. I post on this site a lot, there are a lot of very well informed readers, and you won’t find many examples of me “making stuff up.” Please, provide any example where I “make stuff up.”
I stand corrected, Fabius approved my recent post and actually gave me a “like.”
As somebody who is an engineer at times, the heat rate of a combined cycle ng plant is aesthetically pleasing when compare to the heat rate of a coal plant. Beyond that, it is solely economics. The CO2 released used to be in the atmosphere once upon a time and does not appear to effect the climate in a major fashion. I am still waiting for somebody to give me a reference to a reputable study that rejects the hypothesis of warming during the 20th century as being entirely due to solar effects with a degree of statistical significance.
I hope the folks in W. Va. enjoy their hopey changey thing. They voted for it.
That’s the sad part. Wyoming did the same thing—voted for two spineless individuals who threw coal miners under bus. And they’d do it again. It’s hard not to think people are hopelessly clueless.
ShrNfr
The combined cycle coal gasification plants are every bit the equal of the Nat Gas plants, except they don’t require incoming gas pipelines and you can build them anywhere. The trend now is to remove the nitrogen from the exhaust and recirculate the exhaust with oxygen to create combustion conditions with low excess air and a very high CO2max. The effect on efficiency is amazing. It can only be done at scale – no little stoves unfortunately, but big gas and big coal gas are going head to head now with very interesting technologies.
Both plants can sell the CO2 and (some of the) nitrogen, the recovered metals and the sulfur.
No way is IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycle, comparable to NG CCPP. Insanely expensive and high heat rates.
NS, yup. Indiana’s Edwardsport misadventure proved that in spades. Essay Clean Coal.
Nicholas
I am watching this section (and technology at a distance) closely because they are working hard on what I consider combination innovations. What I hope doesn’t happen is to make the thing as expensive as humanly possible in the hope that someone will fund if to ‘save the climate’.
I work a lot with the gasification of fuel and performance measurement. The technologies all exist single to make this work at a very high efficiency. Boondoggles like the plant in the Southern US are the way ‘big business’ approaches it, Just watch what Indian and China do with the concept when it is their turn.
London used to run on coal gas, and now they make like it is stupendously expensive to make it.
Anthony,
I find much to disagree with in this posted article, but I congratulate you for posting it. Not every article here has to toe some line. Diversity in opinions of guest posters is a welcome thing — and we don’t all think that you personally agree 100% with every post. Nor should you.
As I said, kudos.
diversity in opinion is fine … this post was pure ignorance … unless the diversity you seek is intelligent and stupid …
I’m blown away that Tri Alpha Energy has raised as much as $150 in private capital. But I’m guessing you meant $150m?
onion,
Good catch!
Inaccurate, badly written, muddle-headed thinking – which is why I gave it one star. This comment will probably mean I’m barred from posting on his website – if I ever went there, which is exceedingly doubtful having read the above tripe.
luc,
“will probably mean I’m barred from posting on his website ”
What a fine example of confidently making stuff up! Everything goes up (excerpt the usual filters for obscenity etc). There are 8 people whose history of making stuff up sends their comments to moderation first. One guy who post comments of over 1000 words — despite frequent warnings (these are thread killers) is banned.
That’s it.
Luc,
Follow-up note: that’s 9 people out of the crowd that has posted 52,000+ posts on the FM website. A dot compared to those on WUWT, but a large number in absolute terms.
Coal, Oil, and gas, are far too valuable to burn. They make sense to exploit in petrochemicals. However, until we get to rational alternative fuels (nuclear comes to mind) we are stuck with them.
Nuclear powered cars? Maybe using nuclear electricity to power electric cars and trucks. You will need long extension cords for all those 18 wheelers on I-80, 70, 40 & 10.
Their value is determined by technology and the markets, not some warm fuzzy feeling.
Right, js; I’ve long said that those hydrocarbon bonds were much too lovingly formed to shatter just for the energy within them. We need those bonds for structure, to clothe and house us, and for containers to keep all our stuff in.
=================
Given enough energy, you can synth long chain/aromatic hydrocarbons from CO2 and water.
Nothing ‘too valuable’ about them.
What is the value, is the energy.
IN an entropic universe, free energy is life itself.
Well, of course, given enough energy. There is a lot of energy in the universe and my long term prediction is that man will not ultimately use all of it.
================
The other harsh irony is that coal, the coal miners and John L Lewis made the modern democratic party. FDR created the Tennessee Valley Authority and other coal powered energy programs. Coal won WWII for us.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-seizes-control-of-montgomery-ward
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16392
Teddy did the same:
http://50.87.199.78/johnsonpost/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Teddy-Roosevelt-the-Anthracite-Coal-Strike-the-Railroad-and-Civil-Rights-_picture_-2.jpg
TVA started out as a hydro power system and to reduce flooding. Of course, barge traffic allows cheap coal transportation.
Should we give to FDR for TVA’s nuke plants.
TVA started out as a hydro power system and to reduce flooding. Of course, barge traffic allows cheap coal transportation.
Ooops, the coal powered plants came after FDR. My mistake.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2015/10/the_tennessee_valley_authority_is_closing_coal_plants_and_that_s_huge.html
Franklin D. Roosevelt: It is inconceivable that any patriotic miner can choose any course other than going back to work, and mining coal!
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/coal/
Fabius Maximus underestimates the virulence of the fractivists, and vastly overestimates the effects of burning coal. He is paying attention to the Democratic primary? The Hidebeast and Bernie competing on who can suck up to the anti-fracking movement? He rather missed that, if he is predicting a long term price differential between gas and coal.
Cleaner than an all electric house?
When was your last chimney fire Tom?
How did you get the wood pellets to your house, magic wand?
Kit, the discussion, and my comments, were about electric utility fuel. While nuclear would be preferable, coal is not as bad as Larry Kummer states, and any sucking up to the green blob is reprehensible.
Tom,
“Fabius Maximus underestimates the virulence of the fractivists, and vastly overestimates the effects of burning coal.”
I am reporting facts. Natural gas & other sources are replacing coal. You might not like it, or ever believe that it shouldn’t do so — but the world rolls on nonetheless.
Fun to read all the comments here by people who believe corporate managers running billion dollar energy companies are making foolish mistakes. Time will tell who is correct.
“corporate managers running billion dollar energy companies are making foolish mistakes”
What an argument. Of course they do.
“Coal is dirty and dangerous to mine, moderately expensive to transport (by train or barge), and dirty to burn.”
Dirty to burn? Where are they getting their info? 1945?
Coal smoke is unburned hydrocarbons and lofted carbonaceous particles blasted through combustion chambers made as small as possible – at least that is how it used to be. People don’t throw away energy any more. The ‘coal is dirty’ meme promoters are hoping to tack some vision of 1890 London onto the ‘CO2 is bad’ meme. It goes with the ‘wood is a smoky fuel’ meme that is still pushed by Big Gas.
Having just returned from the Pellet Stove Competition at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, I can confirm that many products are burning wood beautifully these days. I was also witness to an extraordinarily clean burning (bituminous) coal stove in Bishkek a month ago. Here is the link to the pellet stove competition:
http://forgreenheat.blogspot.ca/2016/04/wittus-and-seraph-win-pellet-stove.html
The third place stove was very clean, very compact and generated 30 Watts DC to boot. Visions of doom, meet your Grim Reaper. The future just ain’t what it used to be.
Cleaner than an all electric house?
When was your last chimney fire Tom?
How did you get the wood pellets to your house, magic wand?
Retired Kit
I think it was in 2010 that our research at the University of Johannesburg showed that it was lower in PM2.5, CO2 and CO emissions to burn coal in-house than in a power station of the most modern kind.
When things are burning that cleanly, the issue of chimney fires passes away as the direct cause is accumulation of incompletely burned fuel (tar and soot). In recent years there have been many developments in the ultra-clean combustion of wood and coal, and they are coming to market in odd places.
As for fuel delivery, it is least expensive in terms of infrastructure to move solid fuels because they can be piled, stored, divided and apportioned as needed. For risks associated with pellets, I just heard that wood pellets are emitting CO for some reason. Clarkson Univ in Potsdam is working on why, and what to do about it. What that space.
Chrispen
Thanks for your response. I have heated with wood for many years especially in drafty old houses in very cold climates with heating oil as the existing source. I was working at nuke plants and lived in the boondocks. A popular bumper sticker was ‘Split wood, not atoms!’
At one location, a neighbor was an anti-nuke who loved to tell me how dangerous my job was until he had a chimney fire. When he would bring up nuclear safety, I would ask if he had any chimney fires lately.
“CO emissions to burn coal in-house than in a power station of the most modern kind.”
Whenever there is a major power outage, there is an epidemic CO poisoning at the local emergency rooms.
My point is that comparisons to a coal plant are just wrong. Safety problems with wood stoves or solar panels in your home is that you kill your children.
I think there should be a test for residents of New York and California before doing anything that could endanger children. Judging from elite scientist of the most elite educational institution of those states, people are not very smart there.
I love heating with wood but I have stopped doing it for the most part because it is the most dangerous and dirtiest way to get energy.
Call me cynical, But I suspect that a number of billionaires will buy up these bankrupt companies and have enough political clout to convince politicians that coal isn’t all that bad. Especially when their green schemes begin to fail.
George Soros just bought a whack of shares a few months ago in one of the big two, Arch or Peabody.
How these bankruptcies affects him I’m not sure.
But I really would like to know…
I’m a bit confused after reading this article. (Although, many say “confused” is my natural state.) Am I to believe former workers of these bankrupted companies should be celebrating these “forced reforms”?
Paul,
Free market systems produce good results for the entire society. But every round of progress produces casualties. Automation is a consistent killer of some jobs, but the economy expands. The shift to autos and trucks destroyed whole industries. And so forth.
Do believe we should freeze technology and other forms of progress to protect jobs?
So they want to mandate politically the discovery of new clean energy technologies?
Good luck with that.
Wait for it, wait for it …….
“Tri Alpha Energy’s fusion device.”
Another energy sc*m.
There is a pattern to the incoherent ‘dirty’ whatever sc*ms. Start with a comparison to some old inefficient coal plant or ICE, then compare it to more modern technology, then …..
Wait for it!
Start talking about something that will save the world if they raise enough money to get it working.