From “The Guardian” — Energy Analysts Forecast ‘the End of Coal’ in Asia as Japanese Investors Back Renewables
2250 megawatt coal-fired power plant
At a glance, the coal industry looks like this:
• The U.S. is phasing it out, not because of environmental issues, but because of the relatively low cost of natural gas and renewable energy. We do, however, export the stuff.
• Elsewhere in the Land of the Rising Sun, major Japanese investors, including those most indebted to coal, are seeking to back large-scale renewables projects across Asia, marking a “monumental” shift that energy market analysts say is “the start of the end for thermal coal.”
• Germany loves renewable energy and has integrated a ton of it. But, because of its misguided phobia of nuclear, it’s ramping up on coal. Fortunately, Germany is the only country on Earth that has this set of thinking going on.
When you stop and think about it, it’s an interesting, albeit sad commentary of our civilization. Coal, with its greenhouse gas emissions and oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and its broad array of toxins including several different heavy metals to its radioactive isotopes of uranium and thorium, would be chugging along just fine if it weren’t for investors’ ability to find higher returns elsewhere.
I suppose I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Craig,
Regrettably, both yourself and the Guardian newspaper are misinformed.
I suppose it’s only to expected if you rely on information from a a blog, entitled “ENDCOAL.ORG” ! I’d have thought the name itself would create doubt if such an outlet could be relied upon for accurate and impartial information.
Outside of the realm of fantasy inhabited by the Guardian and obscure little publications, Coal investment is slowly resuming all over the planet.
It’s true coal has faced severe competition from the huge expansion and low pricing of natural gas and some loss of confidence from and intense and prolonged campaign against the industry from both the renewable energy lobby, and ‘green’ political advocates continuing to rant on about 19th century coal technology.
However, in the last two years the coal industry has been revived and reinvigorated by the increasing demand for coal. Partly this is due to natural gas increasing in price due to increased LPG demand from Asia and Europe.
Japan is a good example of country attempting to convert to natural gas and being caught with sudden price increases due to competition from both China and South Korea.
Meanwhile, as new Clean Coal(er) technology begins to make coal one the cleanest of all electricity generating technologies, coal once again becomes the investment of choice for developing economies undergoing rapid industrialization.
What’s sad, is watching the spectacle of ‘green troglodyte’ advocates, refusing to even acknowledge the astounding new developments take lace in clean(er) coal technology, for fear it may be true.
The UK has just reopened the first new coal mine in nearly twenty years.
India, Pakistan, Kenya, Ghana, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Zambia,Brazil, Egypt are all customers for new CCS-HELE technology, which is already being superseded by even more amazing developments such as the liquefied coal process invented by two young Australian researchers.
Malaysia and Myanmar both have new coal fired power plants incorporating Japanese technology.
Recent polling in Australia reveal over 74% of Australians favoured new coal “clean(er) coal” plants over renewable energy.
The Guardian cancelled a poll that found a similar result in the UK, and re-phrased the question and conducted another poll to produce the answer they wanted, only to discover that even with a carefully revised question, the result still showed the popularity of coal, so they just left out a some polling samples to produce a better result!
This is how desperate and dishonest the fight against “clean coal” has become. Anti-Coal advocates are afraid to debate the issues or even learn about the new technologies for fear their delusions (and egos) may be shattered.
Clean(er) Coal technology is still in relative infancy with several differing technologies competing, while more are being research and discovered in laboratories all over the world.
The biggest new opportunities for investment may be found in harnessing the by-products of Clean(er) coal technology. This is probably the most exciting frontier for new technology, turning all those “greenhouse gas emissions,oxides of sulfur and nitrogen etc” into valuable industrial by products.
Once of the most promising projects is the addition of coal carbon-dioxide into the cement, concrete and steel industries.
Clean(er)Coal technologies could help reduce the emissions from these industries by up to 70%.