Regarding the Shuttering of Coal-Fired power Plants, We’re Playing the Back Nine
With closing of two more coal plants in Texas, the U.S. has crossed the half-way threshold (262 of the original 543 plants closed, 261 remaining open).
As is always the case, there were multiple “causes of death” in the two most recent cases, primarily an excess of wind energy generation and the low cost of natural gas driving down the market price of electricity.
Keep in mind, however, that although we’re “playing back nine” as it were, the federal government is feverishly cooking up ways to bring subsidies to coal, with specious reasoning like rewarding generation resources that have a certain amount of their annual fuel stored on site. Having said that, market conditions are continuing to create fabulous progress in the right direction, and soon we’ll be in the clubhouse, sipping a cold one.
Craig,
Coal use in the US rose 2.9% this year, while coal fired power rose 11% globally.
Natural Gas prices are only exceedingly economical due to very high production and relatively low LPG prices. With demand from rising LPG and Fertilizer prices more natural gas will start being diverted to fulfill these markets, making coal energy (including coal gas and liquefied coal gas ) economically competitive.
In the meantime, most of the increase in US coal production is being exported, making any celebration of the demise of the US Coal Industry based on the closure of a coal fired generating plant in Texas, either a cunning distortion or a delusion.
I’m afraid the only way you will reach your club house is by cheating when you marked your score !
Craig,
Now the following is from the NYT, hardly a friend of the Trump administration !
1) Germany has spent an estimated 189 billion euros, or about $222 billion, since 2000 on renewable energy subsidies. But emissions have been stuck at roughly 2009 levels, and rose last year, as coal-fired plants fill a void left by Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear power.
Energiewende is proving a costly failure.
2) China (PRC) announced halting plans for 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, and was hailed as the new leader in the fight against climate change.
But alas, the Dragon may as (dragons do) have been less than truthful!
New data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants portrays a very different picture !
Chinese energy companies build over nearly half new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.
These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal. Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, 20% are in other countries.
1,600 coal plants are under construction or planned in 62 countries. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.
The USA is also back in the game.
The frenzied addition of coal plants underscores how the world is set to remain dependent on coal for decades.
Shanghai Electric, one of China’s largest electrical equipment makers,announced plans to build coal power plants in Egypt, Pakistan and Iran with a total capacity of 6,285 megawatts — almost 10 times the 660 megawatts of coal power it has planned in China.
The China Energy Engineering Corporation, which has no public plans to develop coal power in China, is building 2,200 megawatts’ worth of coal-fired power capacity in Vietnam and Malawi.
Of the world’s 20 biggest coal plant developers, 11 are Chinese.
Over all, Chinese companies are behind 340,000 to 386,000 megawatts of planned coal power expansion worldwide. A typical coal plant has a capacity of about 500 megawatts and burns 1.4 million tons of coal each year, enough to power almost 300,000 homes.
China’s two global policy banks, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, provided more than $43 billion in overseas coal financing since 2000.
Some of the countries targeted for coal-power expansion, like Egypt or Pakistan, currently burn almost no coal, and the new coal plants could set the course of their national energy policies for decades.
In Egypt, coal projects by Shanghai Electric and other global developers are set to bring the country’s coal-fired capacity to 17,000 megawatts, from near zero.
Western investors continue to play a role in financing new coal plants overseas. Bonds and shares of the world’s biggest coal developers like India’s National Thermal Power and Marubeni, are still funded by large western institutional investors and banks.
Craig, against this sort of scenario, the closure of old plant in Texas seems a bit irrelevant don’t you think ?
No.
If I thought that progress didn’t matter, I’d be sipping a martini and watching the sun set at the beach right now.