Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; Guterres actually demanded an end to coal, but since metallurgical coal is an essential ingredient in the processes for refining silicon and iron ore, Guterres has effectively demanded the end of solar panel and wind turbine construction.
Secretary-General urges countries to end ‘deadly addiction’ to coal
…
Ending a ‘deadly addiction’
Mr. Guterres underlined action in three areas to end what he called “the deadly addiction to coal.”
He called for countries to cancel all coal projects in the pipeline, particularly the 37 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) who are urged to do so by 2030.
The UN chief also appealed for ending international financing for coal and providing greater support to developing countries transitioning to renewable energy.
“I also ask all multilateral and public banks — as well as investors in commercial banks or pension funds — to shift their investments now in the new economy of renewable energy”, he added.
…
Read more: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086132
There are ongoing attempts to find processes for refining iron ore which do not involve coal, such as substituting hydrogen in place of carbon, but these processes are still experimental. Refining iron ore using hydrogen is particularly problematic; any hydrogen contamination of the final product creates a brittle, mechanically unstable steel.
And of course, steel itself is an alloy of iron and carbon.
I guess it is possible UN Secretary General Guterres has no idea that coal has other uses than being burned for energy.
Guterres also called for public and private funding to be “aligned”, whatever that means.
Mussolini can tell you what “aligned” means.
Those that believe that the use of fossil fuels is bad should stop making use of all goods and services that make use of fossil fuels immediately. That would include all products and materials moved by truck, train, ship, or airplane. It is not just the food we eat and the clothes that we wear but the buildings we live in and the surfaces that we walk on. All electrical power involves wires and insulators whose production and transport has involved the use of fossil fuels. I doubt that many would be able to live very long running naked out in a complete roadless wilderness area. Making use of energy is a very important and vital part of our lives. The best way to at least start conserving on the use of fossil fuels is to replace ageing fossil fueled power plants with nuclear power plants. But people need to realize that there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So all of these efforts to reduce CO2 emissions cannot possible have any effect on global climate.
Here’s the plan:
All primary steel production will be made in China and all other steel production from scrap will be done elsewhere. (It’s already going that way now.)
All silicon ingot production will be made in China and most of the silicon panel production, except for the other Asian panel plants that China uses to get around tariffs. (It’s already going that way now.)
Any complaints about China will be handled by Xi and the CCP. Got that Guterres?
What… !!!
IF NOT THAT THEN WHAT…???
CO2 is good for the Earth… it makes the planet greener.
That’s the green deal I like.
Hydrocarbons are a natural product of the Earth.
We should use them.
The alternative? Rationing.
Some people would like that.
Thanks, Eric!
Once again the Green Blob shows it’s ignorance of the real world! Although his preaching is primarily directed at the once wealthy Western world, it will actually affect the Third World more as poor nations are knocked off the lower rungs of the ladder to prosperity by being prevented from developing their own coal resources. Of course, China and India will ignore him and continue burning coal at ever increasing rates! Maybe they’ll be able to make all the panels and bird choppers GangGreen hopes to install!
In Calizuela they got the system perfected! Wealthy home owners who install panels are paid for any excess electricity they produce while the poor are subsidized by the state due to the high costs of Unreliable Energy. That leaves the middle class paying both the poor and the wealthy for the privilege of having regular disruptions in the electric supply! No wonder the middle class and small business owners are fleeing in such numbers!
I believe the alignment of private and public funding is what we used to call Fascism. That would be where the government tells businesses what to do with a big, green smiley face!
Oh, for Pete’s sakes, send these UN nimrods to another planet: I hear that Mars is available, and does have a source of water.
“He called for countries to cancel all coal projects in the pipeline, particularly the 37 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) who are urged to do so by 2030.”
Three guesses (first two don’t count) as to the name of the country that is both building coal plants hand over fist and is not a member of the OECD. Class? Anyone? Bueller?
These people know exactly what they’re saying (doing). They’re far from stupid, however they do think we’re stupid for going along with their senseless projects.
What happens when absolute morons are put in positions of responsibility.
When did everybody agree to be lectured to by an unelected corrupt Portuguese Socialist?
I don’t recall the elections for the UN servants? When were they held?
“Guterres actually demanded an end to coal”
Converting that into a headline that claims something else is a rhetorical device that I despise and I think has no place in a scientific blog. Political blog, okay, but this is more inciteful than insightful.
The only thing worth despising here is the United Nations mafia, don’t be a patsy.
People need to be incited to stand up against the UN.
A bit of a stretch this article… desperate, even
Ahh, your feelings hurt again? Without coal or oil there is no solar or wind. Idiot.
You need to report back
be careful what you wish for ,seems appropriate here
Metallurgical, or coking coal is a red herring issue, and represent only about 7% of total coal useage, which is primarily for energy production. However, the anti-coalers don’t appear to make a distinction, so why should we, in our mockery of them?
Guterres’ “deadly addiction to coal” is so laughably absurd and stupid that you really couldn’t make it up. Although it is remarkably reminiscent of Hansen’s “coal trains of death”.
Guterres would much rather tilt at climate windmills than deal with hard problems like WHO ‘investigations’ in Wuhan. He knows his limits in China.
Iron and steel production account for 8% of total worldwide human CO2 emissions. 1.6 billion tonnes of steel are produced every year. 1.5 billion tonnes is produced via the blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace route (BF-BOF). 100 million tonnes is produced via direct reduction (using CO and H2 produced from methane) and electric arc furnace route(DRI-EAF).
Reduction using hydrogen is likely to be less than a couple of hundred tonnes and mostly for research, because the cost is 30% more expensive than the other two routes.
ArcelorMittal have teamed up with Midrex in Germany to try and build a demonstration plant for this process with the aim of producing 100,000 tonnes per year, but there’s no date for when that may happen.
Even if the process cost was similar there’d still be the problem with lack of hydrogen infrastructure. It’s a no go for the quantity and cost required.
How can we notify these people that we NEED lots of CO2 in order to live since plants use CO2 to make O2 and food for humans?
Around 800 kg of coal is used to produce 1000 kg of steel. And steel contains up to 2% carbon, i.e. up to 20 kg of carbon per 1000 kg of steel. Furthermore those up to 20 kg carbon are locked in the steel and not released to the atmosphere.
The contrarian in me thinks the gaggle recommendation Artificial Intelligence has a sense of humor. Just yesterday YT recommended the following video.
“Illawara Coke”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZMxW5UKRFA
It is an amatuer video from a guy that worked at the coke plant.
As a result details on the USES of coke are barely mentioned.
I don’t ‘know’ but I’ve been told, if a bunch of folks watch something it gets recommended more often. To the folks ahead of me who watched it recently I say “thank you”.
Is there a good reference for the necessity of amounts of coal in the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines — excluding it’s use as a power source?
The water at the UN heeds to be checked. There is obviously a contamanate in the water that cause the brain of the imbiber to degenerate.
Perhaps its lead? it happend in Rome 1500 years ago
It is the only viable explanation for the cluster of stupid people the wander the halls of the UN in a delusional state
And while their at it, check the White House pipes a well maybe there was some renovations a few mths back that might explain the same symptoms
To add to this the electrodes in an Arc furnace are made out of needle coke. Needle coke is ONLY comes from coal or fossil fuels.