10 ms·

California's generation of electricity from coal drops dramatically

193 points by Osiris30 10y ago

melling 10y ago
Isn't this last year's news? Here's energy use by state from last July: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plant... A few states use almost zero coal.
- tedd4u 10y ago
  From the article: "… in a report that the agency released last week, California saw a 96% decrease in coal-fueled electric power consumption …"
  - melling 10y ago
    They had 5 plants in 2015 and now they have 3? Did you read my article?
- tedd4u 10y ago
  And the chart shows that despite falling since 2008, 2015 levels were nearly 50% down from 2014. So the decrease is accelerating.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - melling 10y ago
    In the article from July 2015, coal was less than 1%. What is left to accelerate?
jessriedel 10y ago
Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels: Coal 228.6 - 205.7 Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3 Gasoline 157.2 Propane 139.0 Natural gas 117.0 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11
- vkou 10y ago
  Does this include the CO2 emitted in the process of extracting and refining diesel/gasoline? Depending on the source of the oil (Canadian Tar sands vs Saudi Arabia), its carbon footprint can vary drastically.
  - bolasanibk 10y ago
    All of the fuels listed in the grandparent have extracting and refining costs which depend on the source.
    - vkou 10y ago
      That is true - but I believe that extraction and refining is a much bigger contributor to oil's footprint, compared to coal's. It is also far more variable. To turn a barrel of tar sands oil into gasoline, for example, adds another ~230 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere - in addition to the emissions from burning it. That's ~40 pounds/million BTU. It almost costs us more energy to mine and refine tar sands oil, then we get out of burning it.
- actionwords 10y ago
  nuclear ~0
- typetypetype 10y ago
  ...and nuclear is 0?
  - rgbrenner 10y ago
    Almost.. the IEA puts it at 2-59 grams per kwh. Hydro at 2-49g; wind at 7-124g; and solar at 13-731g. In comparison to nat gas at 389-511g. Hydro and nuclear are pretty much tied. And wind is a close 3rd. see page 134: also has SO2, NOX, and a few other stats: http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2002/nea3676-externalities.pdf http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2002/nea3676-externaliti...
barney54 10y ago
The LA Times' title for this article is wrong. California does not generate electricity from coal, however, California uses a lot of electricity generated from coal. As the article notes near the end, California uses electricity from coal generated out of state. According to SNL, "at times, as much as 50% of Southern California's electricity still comes from coal-fired plants, Steve Homer, director of project management for the Southern California Public Power Authority, or SCPPA, told SNL Energy." https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-34113318-14128 https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-3411331... This really is a reminder that the writers of articles frequently do not write the headlines. That's a big reason why titles of articles are frequently misleading.
- tn13 10y ago
  Titles are written by click-bait experts.
  - dontbanme 10y ago
    Master baiters, you might say!
- calcsam 10y ago
  The reason is pretty simple: California doesn't have many power plants. I spent a day or two once sifting through California Public Utility Commission archives. California has not approved a coal plant since at least 1978, mainly due to NIMBY concerns wherever they tried to build them.
  - mikeyouse 10y ago
    I disagree with most things NIMBY, but can you really fault people for not wanting a coal-burning power plant in their backyard given the sheer volume of pollutants released from them? It seems like a great thing that California hasn't approved a new one in 40 years.
    - scarmig 10y ago
TheLarch 10y ago
Work in the industry at the moment. The US sells lots of coal to China, where it is burned with far less regulation than it would be in the US. The coal plants I work on are secretive to the point where they do not want their name even in technical publications. Instead we say e.g. "a large coal-fired plant in the Midwest..."
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Coal imports to China are dropping quickly: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-imports-down-a-further-10-30570 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-i... http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUSL3N14X1TC20160113 http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUS... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal-imports-crash-as-economy-slows-amid-clean-power-shift http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal...
- rconti 10y ago
  China has basically ceased approving new coal plants and is taking the lead in solar innovation.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Ultimately it is good news, although the number of agendas present when reporting energy news is amazing sometimes. It would be interesting to find alternative uses for coal that weren't polluting. A more enlightened civilization might use the revenue from that alternate use to fund re-education and social support for people too old to learn new skills other than coal production. In that way you could humanely "close out" the era of coal use on the people whose lives were intimately tied to its existence.
- tosseraccount 10y ago
  But wouldn't letting markets allocate labor resources be a more optimal solution? Private investment can handle the re-training challenges.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    In the small case I'm all for it, but when systemic changes are made to the economy I think it would be reasonable to consider helping the translation by redirecting some capital toward that realignment. The existing method of using transfer payments from the new growth to sustain the displaced resources as you wait for them to reallocate takes to long and is itself inefficient.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Private investment can handle the re-training challenges. It could, but it won't as long as the labor market is soft.
- imron 10y ago
  > Ultimately it is good news Yes, but if you read the article, it's dropped from 1% to 0.2% - so from a tiny fraction to an even tinier fraction, working out to a drop of 0.1 percentage point per year So beyond the psychological frame, not much has changed.
nostromo 10y ago
Before California pats itself on the back too much here -- people should realize that the switch to natural gas has largely been driven by fracking, which has made natural gas more cost competitive.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  No worries there. By the time coal is deprecated, the price of natural gas will spike, causing renewables to be deployed more quickly with utility scale battery storage. Lot of fossil fuel generation out there that's going to be left as stranded assets.
  - actionwords 10y ago
    'renewables' made of rare earth minerals. Which are more toxic to the environment to mine, refine, and manufacture than traditional energy sources.
  - intrasight 10y ago
    The fuel itself (reserves in the ground) is the largest component of that "stranded asset", right?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      For the exploration company? Yes. For utilities or independent generators, the generation asset itself is the largest component. I'm unaware of anyone vertically integrated, where they own the wells, the pipelines, and the generation facility (in the US).
- mason240 10y ago
  Also, before California pats itself on the back too much here, they have been blocking nuclear and hydro for decades, both of which would have reduced their use coal.
  - dmode 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
fixermark 10y ago
There go the jobs in the middle of my home state. ... to another profession, as is how structural unemployment works in general.
tosseraccount 10y ago
EIA estimates that U.S. coal production in April was 46 million short tons (MMst), a 6 MMst (12%) decrease from the previous month and 29 MMst (38%) lower than in April 2015. Forecast coal production is expected to decrease by 150 MMst (17%) in 2016, which would be the largest decline in terms of both tons and percentage since data collection started in 1949. -U.S Energy Information Administration ( https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/coal.cfm https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/coal.cfm ) Coal consumption, 90% of which is in electricity generation, is down nationally. It appears solar and natural gas are out competing coal: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_1 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...
arm85 10y ago
The same has happened in the UK I've noticed. Currently 500MW but previously today 150MW. http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk
williesleg 10y ago
I don't get it, why don't they use more Solar? Is it because of Warren Buffet? Let's see what he did to Nevada...
ck2 10y ago
Does the desire for natural gas mean they are finally going to stop burning it all off and destroying the climate in North Dakota to get to the oil? http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dakota-gas-flaring-20140717-story.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dakota-gas-flaring-20140... http://www.npr.org/2014/01/30/265396179/much-of-north-dakota-s-natural-gas-is-going-up-in-flames http://www.npr.org/2014/01/30/265396179/much-of-north-dakota... http://www.climatecentral.org/news/north-dakota-gas-flaring-doubles-pumping-co2-into-air-17212 http://www.climatecentral.org/news/north-dakota-gas-flaring-...

193 points by Osiris30 10y ago

Isn't this last year's news? Here's energy use by state from last July: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plant... A few states use almost zero coal.

tedd4u 10y ago
From the article: "… in a report that the agency released last week, California saw a 96% decrease in coal-fueled electric power consumption …"
- melling 10y ago
  They had 5 plants in 2015 and now they have 3? Did you read my article?
tedd4u 10y ago
And the chart shows that despite falling since 2008, 2015 levels were nearly 50% down from 2014. So the decrease is accelerating.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- melling 10y ago
  In the article from July 2015, coal was less than 1%. What is left to accelerate?

jessriedel 10y ago

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels: Coal 228.6 - 205.7 Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3 Gasoline 157.2 Propane 139.0 Natural gas 117.0 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11

vkou 10y ago
Does this include the CO2 emitted in the process of extracting and refining diesel/gasoline? Depending on the source of the oil (Canadian Tar sands vs Saudi Arabia), its carbon footprint can vary drastically.
- bolasanibk 10y ago
  All of the fuels listed in the grandparent have extracting and refining costs which depend on the source.
  - vkou 10y ago
    That is true - but I believe that extraction and refining is a much bigger contributor to oil's footprint, compared to coal's. It is also far more variable. To turn a barrel of tar sands oil into gasoline, for example, adds another ~230 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere - in addition to the emissions from burning it. That's ~40 pounds/million BTU. It almost costs us more energy to mine and refine tar sands oil, then we get out of burning it.
actionwords 10y ago
nuclear ~0
typetypetype 10y ago
...and nuclear is 0?
- rgbrenner 10y ago
  Almost.. the IEA puts it at 2-59 grams per kwh. Hydro at 2-49g; wind at 7-124g; and solar at 13-731g. In comparison to nat gas at 389-511g. Hydro and nuclear are pretty much tied. And wind is a close 3rd. see page 134: also has SO2, NOX, and a few other stats: http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2002/nea3676-externalities.pdf http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2002/nea3676-externaliti...

barney54 10y ago

The LA Times' title for this article is wrong. California does not generate electricity from coal, however, California uses a lot of electricity generated from coal. As the article notes near the end, California uses electricity from coal generated out of state. According to SNL, "at times, as much as 50% of Southern California's electricity still comes from coal-fired plants, Steve Homer, director of project management for the Southern California Public Power Authority, or SCPPA, told SNL Energy." https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-34113318-14128 https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-3411331... This really is a reminder that the writers of articles frequently do not write the headlines. That's a big reason why titles of articles are frequently misleading.

tn13 10y ago
Titles are written by click-bait experts.
- dontbanme 10y ago
  Master baiters, you might say!
calcsam 10y ago
The reason is pretty simple: California doesn't have many power plants. I spent a day or two once sifting through California Public Utility Commission archives. California has not approved a coal plant since at least 1978, mainly due to NIMBY concerns wherever they tried to build them.
- mikeyouse 10y ago
  I disagree with most things NIMBY, but can you really fault people for not wanting a coal-burning power plant in their backyard given the sheer volume of pollutants released from them? It seems like a great thing that California hasn't approved a new one in 40 years.
  - scarmig 10y ago

TheLarch 10y ago

Work in the industry at the moment. The US sells lots of coal to China, where it is burned with far less regulation than it would be in the US. The coal plants I work on are secretive to the point where they do not want their name even in technical publications. Instead we say e.g. "a large coal-fired plant in the Midwest..."

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Coal imports to China are dropping quickly: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-imports-down-a-further-10-30570 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-i... http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUSL3N14X1TC20160113 http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUS... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal-imports-crash-as-economy-slows-amid-clean-power-shift http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal...
rconti 10y ago
China has basically ceased approving new coal plants and is taking the lead in solar innovation.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Ultimately it is good news, although the number of agendas present when reporting energy news is amazing sometimes. It would be interesting to find alternative uses for coal that weren't polluting. A more enlightened civilization might use the revenue from that alternate use to fund re-education and social support for people too old to learn new skills other than coal production. In that way you could humanely "close out" the era of coal use on the people whose lives were intimately tied to its existence.

tosseraccount 10y ago
But wouldn't letting markets allocate labor resources be a more optimal solution? Private investment can handle the re-training challenges.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  In the small case I'm all for it, but when systemic changes are made to the economy I think it would be reasonable to consider helping the translation by redirecting some capital toward that realignment. The existing method of using transfer payments from the new growth to sustain the displaced resources as you wait for them to reallocate takes to long and is itself inefficient.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Private investment can handle the re-training challenges. It could, but it won't as long as the labor market is soft.
imron 10y ago
> Ultimately it is good news Yes, but if you read the article, it's dropped from 1% to 0.2% - so from a tiny fraction to an even tinier fraction, working out to a drop of 0.1 percentage point per year So beyond the psychological frame, not much has changed.

nostromo 10y ago

Before California pats itself on the back too much here -- people should realize that the switch to natural gas has largely been driven by fracking, which has made natural gas more cost competitive.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
No worries there. By the time coal is deprecated, the price of natural gas will spike, causing renewables to be deployed more quickly with utility scale battery storage. Lot of fossil fuel generation out there that's going to be left as stranded assets.
- actionwords 10y ago
  'renewables' made of rare earth minerals. Which are more toxic to the environment to mine, refine, and manufacture than traditional energy sources.
- intrasight 10y ago
  The fuel itself (reserves in the ground) is the largest component of that "stranded asset", right?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    For the exploration company? Yes. For utilities or independent generators, the generation asset itself is the largest component. I'm unaware of anyone vertically integrated, where they own the wells, the pipelines, and the generation facility (in the US).
mason240 10y ago
Also, before California pats itself on the back too much here, they have been blocking nuclear and hydro for decades, both of which would have reduced their use coal.
- dmode 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

fixermark 10y ago

There go the jobs in the middle of my home state. ... to another profession, as is how structural unemployment works in general.

tosseraccount 10y ago

EIA estimates that U.S. coal production in April was 46 million short tons (MMst), a 6 MMst (12%) decrease from the previous month and 29 MMst (38%) lower than in April 2015. Forecast coal production is expected to decrease by 150 MMst (17%) in 2016, which would be the largest decline in terms of both tons and percentage since data collection started in 1949. -U.S Energy Information Administration ( https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/coal.cfm https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/coal.cfm ) Coal consumption, 90% of which is in electricity generation, is down nationally. It appears solar and natural gas are out competing coal: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_1 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...

arm85 10y ago

The same has happened in the UK I've noticed. Currently 500MW but previously today 150MW. http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk

williesleg 10y ago

I don't get it, why don't they use more Solar? Is it because of Warren Buffet? Let's see what he did to Nevada...

ck2 10y ago

Does the desire for natural gas mean they are finally going to stop burning it all off and destroying the climate in North Dakota to get to the oil? http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dakota-gas-flaring-20140717-story.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dakota-gas-flaring-20140... http://www.npr.org/2014/01/30/265396179/much-of-north-dakota-s-natural-gas-is-going-up-in-flames http://www.npr.org/2014/01/30/265396179/much-of-north-dakota... http://www.climatecentral.org/news/north-dakota-gas-flaring-doubles-pumping-co2-into-air-17212 http://www.climatecentral.org/news/north-dakota-gas-flaring-...