By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: Burning coal contributes to pollution (many kinds) and is a major driver of anthropogenic climate change. Last month we looked at the good news from the US about the shift away from coal, and last week about the good news from China. Here’s more good news from Britain. It is part of a global story, putting the world on a path away from the nightmarish scenarios of climate change based on slow tech growth, reliance on coal for power, and rapid population growth.
Good news, for many reasons
Britain is using more solar (yellow) power and burning less coal (black).
From CarbonBrief, 13 April 2016.
“UK coal power hits 0% output for 2nd time this week: 11:40 on 11/5 to 04:00 on 12/5. Likely only 2nd time since 1882.”
— Tweet from Simon Evans, Editor of Carbon Brief.
The good news from Britain…
- “UK coal use to fall to lowest level since industrial revolution“, 15 January 2016.
- “UK solar generation tops coal for the first time” by CarbonBrief, 13 April 2016.
- “UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has announced that the country plans to phase coal out of its energy mix by 2025.”
Burn less coal,
lower the odds of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change
Climate forecasts (called “projections” by the IPCC) rely on two key factors. First, the scenario — a forecast of future emissions, must occur. Second, the model must accurately predict temperatures for that scenario. Previous posts have focused on the latter factor, showing climate scientists’ reluctance to test their models using the decades of data after their publication.
Recent events highlight that the first 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 21st 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 do have bad luck. But presenting such outcomes without mentioning their unlikely assumptions — or worse, misrepresenting it as a “business as usual” scenario — misleads readers and puts the credibility of science itself at risk.
CEA image.
Not just in Britain
“Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week” by John Fitzgerald Weaver at Electrek, May 15. Market forces are shift electricity generation in Texas away from coal to natural gas and renewables, according to a new report by the Brattle Group: see the summary and the full report.
The entire world is shifting away from coal, year by year and nation by nation. Coal use has peaked in every continent (see the details here).
Conclusions
All three core assumptions of the RCP8.5 scenario look less likely every day; we have no reason to suppose that trend will change. We are shifting away from coal to natural gas (cleaner and lower carbon) and renewables. The daily news disproves the assumption of slowing tech progress, as the new industrial revolution slowly begins. See this post for details about the assumption of population growth in the top quintile of the UN’s latest forecast (and why that’s unlikely); coming advances in contraception will make this even less likely.
I believe that future generations will look at our fears and laugh, as we laughed at early 20th century fears of cities buried in horse dung. We have many serious challenges, some appear imminent (e.g., our dying oceans). Let’s prioritize those more and obsess less on more speculative threats.
For More Information
For more information see The keys to understanding climate change, My posts about climate change, and especially these about the rumored coal-driven climate apocalypse…
- Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
- Manufacturing climate nightmares: misusing science to create horrific predictions.
- Good news! Coal bankruptcies point to a better future for our climate.
- Good news from China about climate change!
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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Up side of all that: The coal will still be there to mine after all this hoo-ha has been shown to be an ineffective and dangerous experiment.
Warmer temps = “ineffective” = calls to do more.
Pause or cooling = “we saved the earth.”
Win-win for climate activists.
It will be next to impossible for climate scientists to explain away any future cooling by suggesting that the shift to natural gas aided the process. China and India will continue to increase their coal usage for the next 15 years, approximately. So if the natural drivers are about to lead us into a cold period, then there will no doubt that natural drivers remain completely in control of the Earth’s thermostat.
No, pause or cooling just means the planet hasn’t heated up YET. There is no saving the earth.
They own the predictions and the “actuals” — a huge conflict of interest.
There won’t be any pause or cooling in the data (will be “adjusted” away).
And the longer it sits there, the better the technology is to actually burn it safely, removing actual pollutants such as heavy metals. I have no problem with a shift to an economically viable energy source that is cleaner (ignoring CO2 since it isn’t a pollutant, unless of course you trap it and concentrate it to dangerous concentrations)
An economically viable energy source does not include wind and solar. They are 5 to 10 times more expensive than coal, use very rare elements and are thus by definition unsustainable, and have very short lifetimes relative to coal. Real energy should be from coal, thorium, or cold fusion. Notice that these three energy sources all have the ability to generate energy all day and not only when the sun shines or the wind blows. Green energy “blows” (sucks) big time, it blows/sucks wealth and reliability.
Coal under Britain is very rich in gas, once saw an estimate of the coal gas under the English North Sea as a thousand years worth.
http://theconversation.com/explainer-coal-seam-gas-shale-gas-and-fracking-in-australia-2585
They’re doing it in Australia.
They are extracting gas from it under the Bristol Channel I believe.
No, it is not “coal gas.” It is natural gas from much deeper. They have quadrillions of cubic feet of natural gas, enough for 1000s of years, but it has nothing to do with coal, which is fossil. Natural gas and oil are from Earth’s core and replenish over time. My family has had oil/gas wells in Texas since the 1920s and they never stop producing. Many wells were closed with the idea that they were dead, only to find years later that they had recharged. As natural gas and oil seep upward from the core, it can be obtained virtually any place one drills deep enough. The Russians have been trying to tell us about this for years and we are finally hearing them.
I’m confused…. (sarc)
I am pretty sure I saw that higher temperatures will reduce human fertility, lower sperm counts and more female offspring.
I am pretty sure that ‘low tech’ coal provides high energy that is necessary to create solar panel quality silicon.
I am very sure that WHO states 9 million people die every year because of lack to ‘low tech’ high energy coal to sun water and sewer plants.
I know for a fact that various ‘high tech’ engineering solutions are derived from certain types of coal.
And I am very sure that one day in April, nobody needed heat to survive. Comparably, Obama claimed we reduced the use of fuels…after everyone lost their jobs and stopped driving.
You’re confused? The people making these decisions have no idea what they are doing. We need more CO2 to feed the plants, and less intervention to allow cheap, clean (as it si already) coal energy, and people free to use this energy. Wind and solar are the least green energy on the planet and destined to fail; what a waste of resources. Wind and solar are useful only at the end-user site, as a means of decreasing the burden on the grid. However, any effort to supply the grid with wind and solar as the main source is destined to fail, as the fluctuations in power will burn out the grid, just as it is doing right now in Germany—the random changes in power are driving management crazy and destroying their grid.
Maybe I’ve missed something or perhaps I’m the only one who doesn’t know who Larry is.
The first time I saw his ‘avatar’ on WUWT, I thought that It screamed of the thinly veiled aggrandisements favoured by political activists. To me, it ‘decodes’ as Maximum Socialist. However, because Fabius Maximus* actually was the namesake for Fabian Socialism it is even more disturbing (Look up, slow and steady, in regards to Fabianism). If I remember correctly, Larry also has a psychology degree and this frightens me even more. I am genuinely disturbed by these people because of the extremism of there beliefs.
I’m happy for anybody to have any genuine opinion they like but a frontman for a real political power scares the hell out of me!
I would really like to know what Larry’s position on life and death is! Who should hold this power, the People or the State?
*Roman politician, full name: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator
Britain moving away from coal? At present, at considerable expense, we are squirreling it away for winter!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/energy-bills/11986906/Capacity-market-the-new-fossil-fuel-energy-policy-that-will-add-22-to-bills.html
Coal is already perfectly safe w/modern precips & scrubbers. CO2 is not “pollution”, it’s plant food.
for the life of me I can’t understand why Nuclear Power is not being more strenuously presented as the succession technology to coal for the production of electricity. The only requirement is to straighten out the bureaucratic mess that has been created by classifying everything that emits anything as “high level waste” and proceeding to disposal in stable geological sites.
I read somewhere that the fly ash from coal plants has enough uranium in it to qualify as low level nuclear waste.
Wrong way to look at it. It is sometimes high enough to qualify it as a uranium resource in certain coals. Nuclear waste proper, has fission products in it. Natural uranium just has its daughters. It is all still relatively innocuous, other than for idiots to grieve over.
The problem is that the definition of “low level nuclear” waste is ridiculously restrictive.
By which I mean, that when the radiation suits worn by the workers are considered low level waste, there is something seriously wrong with your definitions.
Cheer up – that gorgeous pink or red granite used in counter-tops as well as building facades and floors is probably radioactive as well.
Not “probably” – definitely.
No need to worry about the future of “nuclear wastes” – molten salt reactors love to burn the stuff, extracting most of the remaining 96% of energy still remaining in the nuclear fuel after several passthrus thru conventional reactors. Result of burning by molten salt reactors is low level waste, easily stored for a hundred years or so, when radiation level returns to background levels. And is physically impossible to
present any danger while doing so.
Sounds like a winner to me.
Britain is contracting to build quite a few reactors on the western seacost. Several countries and manufacturers will be building the reactors
I am not sure many of us here will live long enough to see them let alone enjoy their ridiculously expensive electricity.
western hi-cost.
Sorry. Slipped out.
Auto.
PS – genuine Nuclear power, with sensible – not ludicrous – precautions – is not cheap – but some of the numbers bandied about – not least by Rudd, Secretary of State for Ramping Energy Costs to the Moon [In her case, Titan, a moon of Saturn] – are horrifying, even compared with offshore wind/bird-blender.
We are shifting away from coal to natural gas …
here we go……peak gas will be next
Forrest,
As I said in the post: “We are shifting away from coal to natural gas (cleaner and lower carbon) and renewables.” Mostly to natural gas, often cheaper than coal at equivalent or lower pollution levels (i.e., coal can be clean with additional expense).
From the article cited above: “UK coal use to fall to lowest level since industrial revolution“.
Gas is cheaper for now.
The odds are this will not last forever since we are now burning natural gas but leaving the coal in the ground.
When we draw down enough of natural gas for it to rise in expense, then coal will become cheaper and we will shift back from to coal.
Gas use in the UK is already down substantially from its peak in 2000. Electricity consumption has fallen overall. Wind and solar have been the main growth areas.
Overall final energy consumption fell by 10 per cent (16.0 Mtoe) between 2000 and 2013. Over this time energy consumption by the industrial sector fell by almost one third (11.3 Mtoe) …
See Chart 5 on p10 of this link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/449102/ECUK_Chapter_1_-_Overall_factsheet.pdf
Britain’s consumption of energy in industry in 2014 was 25% of the consumption by industry in 1970. Britain is losing its industry.
Wind and solar may be subsidized growth areas but they are an irrelevance (3.1MToe in 2014) when compared with 135.3MToe overall energy consumption in 2014 (of which 40.2MToe was gas).
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/437953/Renewable_energy_in_2014.pdf
MarkW May 18, 2016 at 12:14 pm
“Gas is cheaper for now.
The odds are this will not last forever since we are now burning natural gas but leaving the coal in the ground.
When we draw down enough of natural gas for it to rise in expense, then coal will become cheaper and we will shift back from to coal.”
I doubt it. By the time gas has had it’s day, renewables will be the dominant energy source. Very interesting article
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/germany-just-produced-so-much-renewable-energy-it-had-pay-people-use-it
Renewables will never be the dominant energy source.
How do I know? I’m an engineer and was educated successfully to calculate the outcome. I did.
Does this mean the clear cutting of forests for chip plants is over? The wildlife would like to know. Second question: How do you know this is not just shuffling the fossil fuel production somewhere else along with industrial power users while converting the country into a service-oriented city state?
“Does this mean the clear cutting of forests for chip plants is over? The wildlife would like to know.”
Which wildlife are you referring to? Would the “threatened species” lynx be included in your inquiry?
It’s been documented that lynx populations exploded in areas that were clear cut. After the underbrush took hold and the rabbit population soared, the lynx were soon to follow.
I would not get too excited about China.
There is no prospect of coal consumption falling anytime in the foreseeable future, and solar/ wind power still remain tiny there.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/bbcs-false-claims-about-china-solar-power-exposed/
The main reason for the coal numbers levelling off is the lack of growth of energy intensive industries in the last year or so.
Crude steel output in China has, for instance, actually fallen since 2013, despite exports increasing.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/china-coal-2/
Update about peaking of China’s coal production
There are a large number of articles that disagree with you. Here are two of them.
“China coal consumption drops again“, The Guardian.
“Statistics From China Say Coal Consumption Continues to Drop“, The New York Times.
hina is rapidly closing much of its older coal-generation capacity — a major source of the toxic clouds over its major cities. Doing so is a major public policy priority, for obvious reasons. They’re being replaced by coal plus nuclear plus renewables. For details, and links to other sources, see Good news from China about climate change!
Some of your fellow travelers disagree with you.
http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/chinas-growing-coal-use-is-worlds-growing-problem-16999
The Guardian? Are you serious?
I would rather believe what the Chinese themselves say in their INDC:
To increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030
http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/indc/Submission%20Pages/submissions.aspx
In 2014, it was already 11%, according to BP.
Given that most authorities forecast a massive increase in total energy consumption by then, the contribution from fossil fuels will continue to rise rapidly. Sure there will be a small switch from coal to gas, and the older inefficient coal plants are being replaced by more efficient ones out of cities.
But the idea that coal is being quickly phased out in China, or is even dropping significantly, belongs in cloud cuckoo land.
“I would rather believe what the Chinese themselves say…”
The Guardian is no better, but I am curious, why exactly would you believe the Chinese?
The Guardian is no better, but I am curious, why exactly would you believe the Chinese?
Because unlike the Guardian I am not an eco-racist.
So, you think Communist dictatorship is a racial thing? Sorry, no. The former Soviet Union was composed largely of Slavic peoples. There are very few ethnic Chinese in Cuba (less than 1%). And, the faculties of our major universities also are not generally dominated by those of Chinese ethnicity. So, no, Communism is not generally a Chinese thing. Try again.
The Guardian and the NYT would say that, wouldn’t they?
Chinese economic growth is at a 25-year low.
Those are the official data.
Electricity usage suggests actual growth is much slower that the official data.
Almost all analysts calculate significantly lower growth than the official data.
China’s coal consumption is dropping mainly because their electricity use is dropping, due to an economic growth slowdown. (This affects other nations too).
Of course they have a pollution problem, even with less electricity usage, so are building nuclear plants and many more clean(er) coal plants.
It is possible continuous soot from coal burning in China changed the albedo of snow and ice in the Arctic, explaining why the northern half of the Northern Hemisphere has warmed significantly more than the rest of our planet.
Prove it.
Thank you Janice. The writer of this article makes scientifically unsubstantiated allegations. His slip is showing.
Thank you, Harry Passfield, and jsuther2013, for the back-up…. and for the encouragement.
Forest:
But you didn’t prove it, Forrest. And if it was ‘easy’, there’d be no sceptics.
There is no scientific proof coal causes global warming — it is a theory to scare people, and then control them.
The environmentalists shut down nuclear energy, which was the obvious replacement for coal.
The environmentalists are trying to shut down natural gas production (anti-fracking) too.
That leaves two low density, intermittent and expensive sources of energy, solar and wind, that will never replace fossil fuels in our lifetimes.
With modern pollution controls, coal is no more polluting than other forms of fossil energy.
Coal ash isn’t a problem.
The coal plant I worked at had a ongoing study by a nearby university for many yrs on the affect on wildlife living IN flyash and bottomash pond-water. The results were that, tho fish, turtle, frogs and invertebrates did have somewhat elevated metal contents, there was no other discernible effects on them. None. And that is living, growing, and reproducing IN that water, let alone in the adjacent river where that ashpond water was greatly diluted. They concluded the study with their rather remarkable conclusions, and nothing was ever heard about it afterward. What a surprise (sarc).
So, baloney on any issues w/properly maintained flyash and bottom-ash ponds.
MarkW,
Yes. With modern tech almost any fuel source could be made clean.
The relevant question is the cost of coal and natural gas at equivalent levels of pollution emissions. At present — and for the foreseeable future — that’s natural gas.
Economics. Markets. Etc.
Never said otherwise. Just pointing out the stupidity of those who go on and on about coal as if all plants were still using 1950 level environmental controls.
coal is far cheaper than gas.
coal plus regulatory burden is totally uneconomic
its green politics
The anti-fracking nuts may be able to shut down, or at least stop the growth of, natural gas exploration and production … just like they shut down building new nuclear power plants
Ah, but coal ash has been an integral pert of the asphalt and concrete used in road building here in the UK and elsewhere. It’s not “waste”, it is a useable resource.
I believe it is also used in the making of cinder blocks.
Anti-coalers love to paint coal as “dirty”. But modern, scrubber-equipped plants are plenty clean. Additionally, they provide the cheapest, most reliable energy, although NG has made inroads on it in the past 5 – 10 years thanks to fracking, which Greenies hate.
The bottom line is that the objections to coal are ideological, and economically dangerous. Coal is still very much needed. One thing it does is keep demand for NG down, helping to keep that fuel’s prices, which are prone to spiking, down.
Bruce,
You — like almost everybody on this thread — ignores cost. Coal can be made as clean a power source as desired. But not for free.
Natural gas has a large cost advantage in many areas of the world over coal, providing equal BTU’s with equivalent or lower pollution at lower cost.
It’s as the people on this thread have just come from Central Economic Planning School, but missed the class about costs. Ten minutes of discussion with a utility company executive — someone dealing with markets — would help, perhaps.
Until the recent fraking revolution, coal was cheaper, even with pollution controls.
Nobody is ignoring cost just taking a longer view than others.
Oh jeebus, Larry, do you really think we Skeptics are ignoring costs? That’s hilarious. It is you folks who are serial cost-ignorers. And you needed to include a giant straw man to even make your point. No one has ever said that scrubbers were free. Even with scrubbers, modern coal plants are competitive with NG, and you conveniently ignored my point that without coal, NG would certainly creepward up in price.
For some reason, Larry seems to be wedded to the notion that the switch from coal to gas is non-reversible.
Storage is part of the cost equation and coal is by far the cheapest. Its also pretty cheap to refine (since there is none needed unless you wash it). And since the article was based on Britain, coal has the lowest transportation costs due to the proximity of the mines (back in the day the steam trains could be refilled almost directly from nearby colleries).
Editor
Talking of cost, you have presumably brainwashed yourself to ignore subsidies or confuse them with profits. Solar and wind without subsidies are the most expensive power source on earth. Stealing money to pay for them does not change this fact.
Tell me what the unsubsidized cost of your precious renewables is. And yes that includes the dispatchable backup required as well as the transmission line costs, any energy storage, and properly accounting for anti-market feed-in tariffs.
So many pearls to clutch and you only have two hands. You have my sympathies.
And I have seen more than one press release where green groups trash both coal and NG, calling them “dirty coal and natural gas” to attempt to associate the “dirty” from coal with natural gas. So trying to build up natural gas at the expense of coal is a circular firing squad.
Coming out of winter means more sun and less heating needed, close the gap by cutting coal. No surprise there, I wonder what the same graph will look like from October to January.
Sounds right to me. The response to less energy consumption concomitant to the arrival of Spring is to quit throwing coal in the furnace. It’s not wise to try that with with solar panels and wind turbines because the sun continues to shine and the wind continues to blow.
Larry, you’r begging the question so many times it seems to be deliberate. “Britain blows up economy in pursuit of Green fantasy” would be a mor appropriate title.
Tom,
You have your opinion. The people running utilities in Britain, America, China, and almost everywhere else disagree with you.
We’ll see who is correct. I vote with the people actually running businesses, with money on the table.
In your opinion, the taxes and regulations being placed on businesses have no impact?
Right MarkW, Those businesses are playing the table the Government and EPA gave them to play on, nothing more.
The people running utilities in Britain, America, China, and almost everywhere else disagree with you.
DOHH!!!
Have you not seen the costs of the green fantasy?
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/03/19/environmental-levies/
These are the official OBR ones as well.
Ah! You mean Tata for example, shutting down it’s British steel making operation. Or maybe the people running the last significant aluminium smelter in the UK in 2012. In all cases, high energy costs are high on the list of reasons for closure. You vote with those people, do you? I’m guessing that you prefer that the steel and aluminium we need is shipped in from overseas and the workers in the plants languish on the dole.
Editor says:
The people running utilities in Britain, America, China, and almost everywhere else disagree with you.
You’re right about the indoctrinated, socialist western world. But CHINA? Surely you joke, Mr Editor.
Public utilities are highly regulated businesses.
Their management team doesn’t really “run” the business like less regulated businesses — they “manage” the business under the thumb of present, and expected future, government regulations.
Saying 21st century coal burning is a 19th century power source is like saying 21st century vaccination is like 19th century inoculations of cow-pox powder.
The polemics in the head essay is the same mindless tarring we see in the recurring and disparaging phraseology of “our addiction to fossil fuels“. What about our addiction to oxygen? Should we disparage that, too?
There’s nothing wrong with high-tech coal burning. It’s advanced and first rate 21st century power engineering. It’s not 19th century any more than wifi is 19th century wireless broadcast. The whole thesis is fashionable (in some quarters) nonsense.
heh – you saved me the trouble and did it well.
Bass player clams it at 2:32. Love live studio recordings, warts and all!
Solar in the UK is a total waste. It is one of the darkest countries in the world.
Amusing to note that Florida (The SUnshine State) is deemed a poor site for solar.
Too many afternoon clouds, not to mention it’s cloudy for most of the winter.
Lots of liquid sunshine falls all over Florida, which is good for plants, but not power generation. Summer is the rainy season, with clouds and showers almost every afternoon (thank God). Winter is the drier season, but still cloudy about half the time.
and Texas is highly rated….but they ignore the amount of golf ball size and larger hail we get.
Agreed. The UK is the same latitude as Labrador.
I am on the south coast of England which is deemed to be one of the sunniest places in the country. We average 1700 hours of sunshine a year. That is not sufficient to run a viable solar industry. We do however have the sea all round us with nowhere in the country further than 70 miles from it. Tidal and wave power seems a better renewable for us than solar, but there is very little research going on into extracting power from the oceans
Tonyb
Any country fully in a blue area of this map should completely discard solar as a source of energy except for remote out of grid solutions where cost/benefit is not a factor. Otherwise they are just throwing money and energy away (negative ERoEI) and increasing net CO2 emissions where the PVs are made.
http://www.inforse.org/europe/dieret/Solar/asolarirrad.gif
Cost/benefit is always a factor. It’s just that if you are more than a few miles off grid, the calculations get very easy because of the cost of running new power lines.
Yes, you are right in UK case but you have to remember to take in an account all factors.
In Poland (which is in blue on solar energy map) our energy is about 85% from coal. This is country policy to be energy independent as 75% of EU coal is here. But Poland is also quite dry country and last summer coal power plants had to significantly lower their output due to lack of water to cool. In such situation some solar power could be very good support (economically absolutely bad but in moments when there is not enough water in hot summer – excellent add on to energy mix).
More utopian wishful silliness from FM about the “horror” of burning coal to generate electricity, which, by any objective, rational measure, was one of the great (and dare I say) collective leaps of modernity.
The EU is just about to discuss a mainly return to nuclear power.
Seems they’ve realized that renewables and coal can’t supply Europe in the future.
Sorry, forgot the link:
http://www.dw.com/en/european-union-to-publish-strategy-paper-on-nuclear-energy/a-19262144
They’ve probably realised that people will be looking to lynch someone when the lights go out, and want a piece of paper to point to when it does..
Apart from the comic relief about CAGW, this is a pretty pathetic article. The graph covers 4 1/2 months of data, during which time solar power generation has hardly budged. Far more likely, as Green Sand pointed out, is that it’s spring, and so less coal is being burned heating people’s homes.
Tim,
As the articles show, this is a milestone on a long and global trend. Yes, the point marked by a milestone is of little intrinsic significance — but helps to see the overall trend.
Seems like an odd choice of graphics, then, as it tells you nothing of the overall trend. The graphic, as Green Sand and then I point out, has an obvious non-overall trend explanation.
Whether it’s a milestone or not, nothing in the article shows it.
Natural gas is currently cheaper than coal, that won’t last forever. At which point the world will return to burning coal.
I have a cousin in Switzerland, heavily involved in hydro projects. When I asked her about Portugal’s 3 day run on renewable energy she had a 3 word response … “electricity is fungible.”
I’d like to also point out that Portugal is a very small country with very little heavy industry, it uses about the same amount of electricity, an an annual basis, as Arkansas
Money is fungible. Money can also be stored for years without going stale.
Electricity is fungible. Storing a lot of it for long periods is a big problem.
Running on renewables for three days is OK. Running indefinitely is much much much harder (maybe impossible). If they could actually do that, at a price we can afford, it would make CAGW moot.
commieBob, it still does not explain nor does it show anywhere in the article how much and what kind of energy is being used to build, maintain, recycle any of the current ” renewable” methods of creating electricity ( I am still trying to visualize a D-9 Cat with a wind mill on top of it.).
Hayao Miyazaki could do that. He did some pretty amazing animated movies. Here’s a link to an image from Howl’s Moving Castle.
This is clearly a win for Margaret Thatcher who hated coal miners. Did she invent global warming for this very purpose? (or was she the first skeptic?)
1) She hated unions (as does any intelligent person), not miners.
2) She didn’t invent AGW, but she did use what the scientists were telling her to her political advantage.
You should read some history on what conditions were like for the working man before Unions got involved.
Ask the Junior Doctors how they feel about Unions as a modern case in point, or do you consider working 60-100 a week and 24 hours on call OK?
It is not good for the Doctors and it is certainly not good for the Patients to be treated by someone with severe sleep deprivation.
I have read up on that.
If you think that it was the unions that were responsible for the improvement you have no knowledge of the actual conditions and what has occurred.
Working conditions for everyone have been improving for as long as records have been kept. The only change when unions came into being was that the rate of improvement decreased as much of the companies wealth was now being channeled to the union leaders.
It was technology, bought and paid for by the companies that increased the life style of everyone.
I was all for unions at one time. Then I joined a union and became a union official and discovered that the union was more interested in getting along with the company bosses than in representing the employees.
Unions were useful at one time, but today they have become part of the Leftwing political machine, much more interested in politics and power, and money, than in the people they are supposed to represent.
She did, eventually, resile from her original AGW position but, by then, it was too late.
This thread provides a clear example of why climate activists will probably achieve the public policy changes they seek. They hold the institutional high ground in the news, government, academia, and ngos (among others). They have a simple message.
In response skeptics give the public conspiracy theories about scientists, complex explanations, and fondness for coal over cheaper and cleaner fuels (“bad free markets!”).
Meanwhile they ignore the good news, the most effective antidote to doomsters: that we are steadily moving away from the RCP8.5 scenario that powers the doomsters’ case (the basis for almost all the studies describing horrific climate futures). It’s a simple and powerful message that the public should hear.
So keep up the cheering for coal and make the climate alarmists.happy!
“… steadily moving away from the RCP8.5 scenario …” is a complex explanation.
“bad free markets!”
What? Your own links describe why coal is no longer as competitive as it used to be.
“what’s really hit coal is the increase in the carbon tax, the move from £8 to £18 under the carbon floor price floor last year, which really hurt them and flipped the economics over from barely profitable to loss-making.”
So they subsidize solar, wind and biomass while penalizing coal and somehow this is still a free market? Now coal is used to hit peak demand (which is a stupid use for it) and when total demand gets low enough coal use drops below the minuscule solar generation. This is news?
If you raise the carbon tax to 40 pounds you could probably eliminate coal use all summer!
According to many communists that I have dealt with, anything short of pure communism is some form of free-market.
It allows them to excuse the failures of communism, because the communism wasn’t pure enough. Next time it will work.
And when the coal plants are down – to reduce their Carbon Tax bills and save their operating hours for the winter quarter – and the wind drops, the National Grid has to issue its first shortfall notice in eight years and pay massively over the odds for enough electricity to stop the lights going out. This was just a couple of weeks ago.
It was clear from the Climategate emails that the leading scientists in this field conspired to dodge FOIA requests. That’s not a theory it is a fact.
It is telling how you editor of Fabius Maximus misrepresent.
Where are free markets in heavily subsided eolics and sun? or the taxes that punish fossil fuel?
What are cleaner fuels? How do you measure it?
It is cleaner to use rare materials? It is cleaner to dig a big hole to have exotic materials?
My “eco” lamps have to be dropped in specific trash containers because they are very poisonous.
Their processing is accounted for?
I have nothing against that someone builds a sun park or an eolic park, if build with their investors money.
Energy diversification is by itself welcome since it increases redundancy.
what really makes them happy, larry, is appeasement.
your vichy blog promotes their party line.
collaborator, you.
I once read that you could determine the rank/experience of the officer you were up against, by how much of the troops were held in reserve.
We need new officers.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus, website May 18, 2016 at 10:59 am wrote: “This thread provides a clear example of why climate activists will probably achieve the public policy changes they seek. They hold the institutional high ground in the news, government, academia, and ngos (among others).”
Yeah, the only problem is the facts are not on their/your side. They have all agreed to believe in the CAGW theory, even though there is no evidence that it is or will be a reality.
“Institutional highground” means nothing if the institutions are wrong.
well said, editor.
I’m curious, does worrying about “dying oceans” qualify one as a doomster?
The end is nigh. Repent, Sinner!!
The current climate is the best climate in at least 500 years.
Why make radical changes, based on unproven greenhouse theories, to change that?
One does not have to be fond of coal to oppose the theory that coal causes global warming.
Where was all the global warming from 1940 to 1975?
Where was all the global warming from 2005 to 2015?
Didn’t people burn coal in those years?
Hmm … maybe the theory is wrong.
Environmentalists attack nuclear power, fracking, and burning oil for electric power … and offer only intermittent, low density, expensive energy sources, that require near 100% fossil fuel backup for nights with no wind.
Only a fool would cheerlead for the death of coal with NO ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE allowed by the Environmental Nazi’s..
You appear to be such a fool.
Low density, unstable production, short-life energy conversion technologies offer the promise of higher profits. They also offer politicians a plausible premise to corral people in high density population centers. There is more green and democratic leverage in “green” technology.
Coal actually is a problem, but it’s still worth burning, at least until we build modern modular nuclear reactors. Modular IFRs or molten salt reactors are able to burn nearly 100% of fuel and most of the waste versus old 60s designs burning about 1% of fuel and create a huge waste problem. Coal contains U and Th at significant levels. Fly ash is radioactive, producing alpha emissions which are a serious problem in lung tissue. Mercury and other metals seep from ash pools.
An old ORNL study (http://web.ornl.gov/info/reports/1977/3445605115087.pdf) describes the kinds of radionuclides in fly ash. Their analysis of the impact is somewhat flawed since they apparently assume radioactivity is individually dispersed by atom, and not concentrated in the fly ash itself.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/fig3.jpg
From the image above, it is clear lung tissue could be exposed to much higher doses than possible from single atoms of U or daughter radionuclides. Coal should be phased out, but not at the cost of destroying the economy. More people will die from a poor economy than from some slightly elevated level of lung cancer. Presumably, smoking would be more dangerous than coal fly ash in most cases (Beijing a counter-example?).
It’s a good idea to compare relative risks. This problem of lack of comparison has been a big problem preventing the public from properly evaluating the impact of Fukushima. A good start is the famous XKCD banana equivalent dose, comparing the naturally occurring 40K radioactivity in a banana to other things that may seem very scary.
https://xkcd.com/radiation/
I haven’t double-checked the dose from living near a coal plant reported in the chart. That value is likely a whole-body dose, and not representative of local exposure of lung tissue to actual fly ash particles.
As long as you avoid snorting the fly ash, you don’t have a problem.
Precipitators remove the vast majority of the fly ash from the flue gases.
Avoiding the fly-ash was pretty much what I was saying. A 1% release is fine. But perhaps in Beijing fly ash might be a problem. 30 years from now we may have some data on that. If you look at the figure, you see radiation tracks from alpha particles (they call it “fission”, but I’m sure it’s just decay). When the spherule is sitting on live tissue, alpha particles are very powerful mutagens. Constant exposure to alpha internally is much more dangerous than beta. The point is, the spherules concentrate the radiation from coal. It can’t be diluted beyond the spherule. We ordinarily depend on dilution to render radiation exposure from a one-time event insignificant in short order.
The good thing is that a sheet of paper will block alpha particles, so just don’t leave it on your skin, ie long sleeves and if really bad a mask, and don’t snort it if you can help it(ie a mask is your friend).
Decay is fission. You are thinking of chain reactions/criticality or at least neutron initiated fission.
Fly ash activity from US coal is extremely low, <300 Bq/kg. cf 4,400 Bq from K40 in a normal 70kg person.
http://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/avnervengosh/files/2011/08/NORM-in-coal-and-coal-ash_EST1.pdf
Based on first principles, it seems highly unlikely the tracks in the image I showed were produced by U or daughters. Estimates of U in spherules is 20 ppm, material concentrated by a factor of 10 from the original coal. It is possible to estimate the decay rate for that amount of material in a 10 or 100 µm diameter spherule. See http://www.wise-uranium.org/rup.html. I am using only alpha emission (possibly an error) the decay rate including daughters will be 9 times the U rate alone. Using a density of 5 (WAG), we should expect about 10 times the 200 Bq/kg number for total alpha emission. However, in 30 days, would only expect about 30 alpha particles for a 100 µm spherule as shown in the image. But clearly there are about 10 times that number of tracks in the emulsion. Did they expose the emulsion for 300 days? No materials and methods to check, unfortunately. I’m left with perhaps 3 choices: 1) 300+ days of exposure, 2) more like 200 ppm U in spherule, 3) other radionuclides are present in spherules besides U and daughters.
Bottom line, I find it difficult to explain how 200 Bq/kg could produce the image observed. Furthermore, I’m not considering geometry and self-shielding. Consider, 40K is distributed in solution, and not concentrated in a small volume like the spherule.
If I remember correctly, the prompt dose from an atomic bomb detonating far enough away you’re not vaporized is a few hundred mSv or less, I do remember it’s very survivable, at ground zero it’s the heat (and buildings falling on you) you have to hide from, and if it doesn’t kill you, likely protected you from the hard stuff. After the explosion is over , you have to stay covered, and don’t breath or ingest radioactive dust. Most of the nasty stuff decays in 2 or 3 months, and a lot more decays over another 6-12 months.
Hoser: good info, but there is more to the equation all should know. It is true that lung deposition of alpha emitters can produce localized high dose rates. However there are factors that help mitigate the potential problem of lung ingestion. 1) Fly ash particles are fairly large and our bodies are adept at removing large airborne particles long before the particle can reach the alveoli of the lung. The removed particles typically are trapped and swallowed into the alimentary canal. Natural uranium, the principle radionuclide in fly ash is poorly taken up by the body via the alimentary canal. We poop out 99% of alimentary ingested uranium – except for special forms of uranium to which very few are exposed . 2) The lung has mechanisms that remove inhaled particles that are absorbed at the alveoli, but typically a 1 um particle will get transferred to the blood with eventual egestion via normal excretory functions. There are three classes of particles (D, W, and Y) which essentially reference the body’s ability to remove the particle (and conversely retention). We have tons of formulas, tables and studies on the removal/retention of radioactive particles from the lungs. Being a retired health physicist, I have lost some of my ability to be conversant in the subject, but I’ll do some homework and see if I can find more info on fly ash. Fly ash has not been a big issue in the health physics world because it poses very little risk.
Size distribution of fly ash spherules. 10 µm particles are the right size to enter the lung, penetrate deeply, and tend to stay. Rough guess, maybe 10 to 20% of the fly ash is the right size to get deep into the lung and stay. From memory, from classes long ago: 1 µm and smaller are breathed in and out immediately. 100 µm and larger don’t go deep into the lungs, and are removed rapidly by silia and swallowed. Smokers often have damaged silia, so they don’t eliminate spherules effectively.
Failed to give a reference. This one might be better.
http://www.intechopen.com/source/html/19392/media/image2.png
http://www.intechopen.com/books/soil-contamination/multi-technique-application-for-waste-material-detection-and-soil-remediation-strategies-the-red-mud
Hoser says:
Mercury and other metals seep from ash pools.
Wrongo. The university study performed on wildlife living in ash-pond water where I worked showed that, other than selenium, all other metals were virtually insoluble in the river water (pH ~ 8.1).
Not fly ash. Fly ash is a small fraction of the total ash.
See http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/18467/1/Izquierdo_IntJCoalGeol.pdf
It would seem we are on the right track to understand what is really going on. Hg may be released in the gas phase, but if it is captured as HgS, it will not be soluble.
EPA notes Hg is still being released from coal-fired power plants, and amounts to 40 to 50% of the total Hg deposited in US each year. The balance is coming mainly from Asia.
Sources of Mercury Emissions in the U.S. (https://www3.epa.gov/mats/powerplants.html)
Industrial Category 1990 Emissions tons per year (tpy) 2005 Emissions (tpy) Percent Reduction
Power Plants 59 53 10%
Municipal Waste Combustors 57 2 96%
Medical Waste Incinerators 51 1 98%
Hoser, flyash amounts from a coal powerplant are an order of magnitude or more greater than bottom ash. It doesn’t matter anyway — all plants in my utility were phased over to dry flyash removal via vacuum pumps and stored in dry-flyash silos.
And mercury? Mercury, shmercury — emitted vaporized amounts via the stack are insignificant and diluted to harmless levels by simple dispersion. Plants w/scrubbers remove even those tiny amounts.
And Hillary will provide the cherry on top by administering the coup de grace to the Appalachian coal industry putting all of the out of work miners on luxury welfare where they will wile away their remaining years eating fois gras and peeled grapes. Oh frabjus day, calous calais, thou hast surely slain the Jaberwock of climate change. The miners can hardly wait.
“Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week”
Hahaha!
– One of coldest May months ever in registry
– One of wettest May months ever in registry
Result: River Dams at full electrical production. Dams that “greens” are always protesting every build.
Talk about misrepresenting what happened with flashy websites where not even a picture of a dam.
Every GW produced by solar installations dissipates a further 5GW of heat into the local surroundings some of which would normally have been reflected by the higher albedo surface covered by the panels.
It’s like painting the town black and wondering why local temperatures have gone up. A new form of UHI affecting solar farms and their surroundings.