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Trump can slow the decline of coal consumption but he can't reverse it. Investors in new generating plants expect them to operate for decades. The regulatory pe

Trump can slow the decline of coal consumption but he can't reverse it. Investors in new generating plants expect them to operate for decades. The regulatory pendulum is going to swing back against coal within a decade. The optimal thing to do if you own an old coal plant is to run it as much as you profitably can right now, don't invest in major upgrades for the future, and be ready to scrap it whenever the EPA resumes actually protecting the environment. The Chekhov's gun waiting to go off in electricity demand is electric vehicles. When they become a non-trivial part of transportation they'll be the biggest new demand driver for electricity in two generations. Hopefully they'll arrive in a big way shortly after the big wave of coal retirements is finished; otherwise they could keep marginal coal units lingering for a while longer.

enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Trump can slow the decline of coal consumption but he can't reverse it. He doesn't want to reverse it. He doesn't give a shit about coal. He only wants their votes, and the votes of similar industries who will view him as a defender of old-school industry.
- keebEz 10y ago
  Same could be said for solar? The sunbelt is/was heavy on coal for energy production. Solar is a great fit for the sunbelt. The federal government subsidizing solar adoption is a direct transfer of money to southern states as well as a direct negative on WV/WY economies. What is the relative value of marginal votes from those different areas...
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    This isn't about the votes from coal miners. It's about what coal stands for in the minds of rural white voters.
    - yessql 10y ago
      Exactly right. Coal mining as a job has declined much more than coal as fuel. It's just easier to blame regulations and outsourcing than to admit that people can't compete with machines in energy production and manufacturing.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
soperj 10y ago
I don't know if it'll be as big as you think. It takes a fair amount of power to actually refine gasoline.
- philipkglass 10y ago
  I'd love it if you could point me to a source quantifying how much electrical energy from the grid refineries use. Refineries expend a lot of energy turning crude into motor fuel but AFAICT most of that is made by consuming some of the input crude itself (for hydrogen and process heat). None of the citations I've found so far for high refinery energy use quantify the electrical demand they pull from the grid. So while I'm sure that reduced oil refinery use will lower primary energy use I'm not sure how much electrical demand it will free up.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    There's some numbers here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm and here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm Which suggest 46,860 million kilowatt hours of grid electricity used. 577,245 thousand barrels of motor gasoline produced. Which works out to 2kWh per gallon (but ignores the fact that lots of other non-gasoline products are produced as part of the same process). I've seen estimates where if it was 4kW per gallon, then EVs are kind of breaking even and there would be no increase in electricity usage. I'd wildly estimate that maybe only .2 kWh would actually be saved since kerosene etc. would still need to be refined. It's actually possible, that if a carbon tax was imposed, then refineries would use more grid electricity sourced from wind/solar/nuclear/hydro as a cost saving measure rather than burn fossil fuels.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
I used to hear that electric vehicles would help to absorb the excess solar and wind that need to be overbuilt because that's cheaper/easier/better than burning gas or building batteries. I seem to recall reading a study that suggested that surprisingly few electric bus or delivery van fleets would be required to soak up this cheap electricity and tame demand fluctuations but more recently I heard people saying that it's going to be a problem/disaster. I'm not sure if there's new knowledge or it's just become a popular talking point.
- philipkglass 10y ago
  I think that wind is a great fit for EV charging already. Wind power output tends to be higher in the middle of the night, when other kinds of electrical demand are lower and EVs are mostly parked and plugged in. Using EVs to absorb daytime solar peak output would require more work, like getting lots of charger ports in parking garages and parking lots.

enraged_camel 10y ago

>>Trump can slow the decline of coal consumption but he can't reverse it. He doesn't want to reverse it. He doesn't give a shit about coal. He only wants their votes, and the votes of similar industries who will view him as a defender of old-school industry.

keebEz 10y ago
Same could be said for solar? The sunbelt is/was heavy on coal for energy production. Solar is a great fit for the sunbelt. The federal government subsidizing solar adoption is a direct transfer of money to southern states as well as a direct negative on WV/WY economies. What is the relative value of marginal votes from those different areas...
- WalterSear 10y ago
  This isn't about the votes from coal miners. It's about what coal stands for in the minds of rural white voters.
  - yessql 10y ago
    Exactly right. Coal mining as a job has declined much more than coal as fuel. It's just easier to blame regulations and outsourcing than to admit that people can't compete with machines in energy production and manufacturing.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

soperj 10y ago

I don't know if it'll be as big as you think. It takes a fair amount of power to actually refine gasoline.

philipkglass 10y ago
I'd love it if you could point me to a source quantifying how much electrical energy from the grid refineries use. Refineries expend a lot of energy turning crude into motor fuel but AFAICT most of that is made by consuming some of the input crude itself (for hydrogen and process heat). None of the citations I've found so far for high refinery energy use quantify the electrical demand they pull from the grid. So while I'm sure that reduced oil refinery use will lower primary energy use I'm not sure how much electrical demand it will free up.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  There's some numbers here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm and here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm Which suggest 46,860 million kilowatt hours of grid electricity used. 577,245 thousand barrels of motor gasoline produced. Which works out to 2kWh per gallon (but ignores the fact that lots of other non-gasoline products are produced as part of the same process). I've seen estimates where if it was 4kW per gallon, then EVs are kind of breaking even and there would be no increase in electricity usage. I'd wildly estimate that maybe only .2 kWh would actually be saved since kerosene etc. would still need to be refined. It's actually possible, that if a carbon tax was imposed, then refineries would use more grid electricity sourced from wind/solar/nuclear/hydro as a cost saving measure rather than burn fossil fuels.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

I used to hear that electric vehicles would help to absorb the excess solar and wind that need to be overbuilt because that's cheaper/easier/better than burning gas or building batteries. I seem to recall reading a study that suggested that surprisingly few electric bus or delivery van fleets would be required to soak up this cheap electricity and tame demand fluctuations but more recently I heard people saying that it's going to be a problem/disaster. I'm not sure if there's new knowledge or it's just become a popular talking point.

philipkglass 10y ago
I think that wind is a great fit for EV charging already. Wind power output tends to be higher in the middle of the night, when other kinds of electrical demand are lower and EVs are mostly parked and plugged in. Using EVs to absorb daytime solar peak output would require more work, like getting lots of charger ports in parking garages and parking lots.