The Trajectory for Getting Rid of Coal
In my post suggesting that we need to cut the cord with respect to fossil fuel subsidies, senior energy analyst and regular 2GreenEnergy commenter Glenn Doty writes: It will take decades to get society to a point where we can shut off all coal power generation for good. Not years. Decades…..During the super-Renaissance of renewable energy that we’ve celebrated and fought to perpetuate, the total electricity generation from coal has been reduced by 21%. If we can maintain that pace, we’ll eliminate coal by 2055.
Your argument is that we can extrapolate the incursion we’re making into coal linearly, and that’s the part I don’t believe. It strikes me that we’re very near a tipping point after which we’ll see exponential growth. That’s the claim I make and defend in “Bullish on Renewable Energy.” Of course, not everyone is bound to believe me.
Glenn’s reply is a comment he posted to the original article, in which he begins, “I hope and pray that you’re correct…” As always, there is a great deal more to Glenn’s reaction than hope and prayer; I hope readers will check it out.
One thing I should offer here: 2015 should be a record low year for coal, and a VERY significant drop from 2013.
2012 was when the price of NG was falling through the floor, and there was some contemplation the hub prices might have even gone negative (that didn’t pan out, but they did go VERY low). So 2012 was the year in which we had a record amount of NG-sourced electric power, and a 30-year low in the amount of coal power generated.
The price built in 2013, as reduced drilling combined with increased power plant consumption gradually tightened the supply/demand gap for the NG market, and less NG power was generated in 2013, while coal rebuilt a little.
The 2013-2014 winter was brutally cold, and depleted the nation’s NG inventory significantly, so the price of NG increased and many power companies started relying more heavily on coal power again, despite issues with variability caused by a greater portion of the energy used having little variability. April of 2014 saw total U.S. inventories of NG drop to only ~825 Bcf!
So the price increased quickly, and drilling activity increased quickly… and the total supply of NG increased over 10% YOY… then the 2014-2015 winter was mild for everywhere other than the NorthEast of America (actually, it was significantly warmer than average temperatures for everywhere in the world – including both poles – except for the NE portion of North America, which had a month-long winter storm and averaged far below normal temperatures).
So now NG supplies are ~75% higher than the same time last year, and are increasing at >twice the rate. The Henry Hub spot price is already ~$2.50/mcf and dropping quickly, and the first 2 months of 2015 showed a full 15% less coal-generated electricity than was seen during the first 2 months of 2015. (Of course, the NG-sourced electricity increased by 16% during those two months).
But that still couples the drop in coal to the rise of NG (and hydroelectric power – which increased dramatically). Non-hydro renewables actually dropped slightly YOY.