12 ms·
Mapped: The world’s coal power plants
- consultutah 7y agoWhere can I find other datasets like this?
- acidburnNSA 7y agoThis is ok but not as nice of a UI: https://www.eia.gov/maps/ https://www.eia.gov/maps/ This one is incredible: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=...
- toomuchtodo 7y agoTomorrow, the team behind Electricity Map, has a Slack team available to the public. Also, anyone can contribute a parser to an electric grid not yet being scraped for tracking and display.
- scanny 7y agoIt's always worth asking here as well: https://opendata.stackexchange.com/?tab=active https://opendata.stackexchange.com/?tab=active
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ed_dantes99 7y agoDon't bother about it. Now, blame is all on Brazil.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- coconut_crab 7y agoIn Vietnam the plan to build a nuclear power plant was shelved due to the lack of fund and opposition from the people. Guess what replaced it? Three coal power plants! As if that is any cleaner! Russia being embargoed isn't helping either, as we intended to use Russian nuclear technology. As a developing country, Vietnam's electricity consumption will triple around 2030, overtaking Great Britain around 2027. Coal will provide half of that, as renewables alone is not enough. But what else can us developing countries do? Stop developing and stay poor forever?
- BrandonMarc 7y agoSadly, coal power plants release more radiation directly into the atmosphere than nuclear, due to naturally occurring isotopes embedded in the coal ore. So because they were so scared of potential radiation, they ended up ... getting definite radiation instead. Winning!
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Sadly, coal power plants release more radiation directly into the atmosphere than nuclear, More on average. Far less worst case.
- gibolt 7y agoAverage is the worst case, as everyone has to deal with it. The chance of anything going wrong with a modern nuclear facility is astronomically low.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Average is the worst case, as everyone has to deal with it. That's true if: (1) No one in the worst case receives a kind of damage that is not compensable, and (2) You have systems in place so that all the people who experience better than average results compensate all those who receive worse than average results. > The chance of anything going wrong with a modern nuclear facility is astronomically low. The chance of anything going wrong in a modern design, implemented without cutting corners, and operated without cutting corners is, yes. Whether you trust the poltiico-economic system in your country (and that of whoever is providing design/build support, for countries where that isn't purely domestic) is an open question. Social factors are part of the risk calculus. Nuclear disasters have generally not been unavoidable consequences of the technical knowledge at the time they were constructed and operated occuring at their irreducible rate, they've been symptoms of failures of the social systems involved in planning the deployment and use of the technology. You can't assess the real risk of nuclear from the risk posed by the technology when properly applied in an ideal social context alone.
- i_feel_great 7y agoWas initially happy when looking at Australia (my home country) - small circles and no planned stations (maybe Adani in Queensland). Then I realized that the large circles in China and India almost certainly burn Australian coal.
- roenxi 7y agoThey will, but if it makes you feel any better mostly they will burn Chinese coal [0]. Australia is disproportionate. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_prod...
- flor1s 7y agoIf you want to feel better, Australia also exports a lot of uranium afaik
- Iv 7y agoProud of my country for once (Nuclear France) We decarbonated our electricity in a 20 years timeframe (while the consumption was rising) thanks to nuclear power. I always wondered why no other country went that road and why they are still hesitating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France#/media/File:Electricity_production_by_sources_in_France.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France#/...
- acidburnNSA 7y agoCongrats. You all did really an impressive job. Having a ~single utility that could basically standardize on the fleet and share engineering services and operator training across the fleet really is a good example of how to run nukes cheaply too. Nukes in France are currently about 30% cheaper than natural gas. Really awesome. Climate solutions here we come!
- bboygravity 7y agoClimate solutions here we don't come. There's a very strong political lobby in France against nuclear with plans to reduce nuclear power generation there within the next decade(s)[1]. Europe's other "big example" (Germany) will be closing all of it's nuclear power plants within years. Only to replace them by (Russian) gas powered plants. Currently "only" 35 % of Germany's power production (2018) is from "sustainable" sources. CO2 production will go up significantly when they start moving from nuclear to gas and other sources: there's no power source that generates as little CO2 per TWH as nuclear when looking at the entire life cycle. The end result in the future will be: more absolute CO2 emissions (debatable), more CO2 emissions per generated TWH (absolute certainty), more deaths per generated TWH [2], higher consumer energy prices ("sustainable" is way more expensive than nuclear sustainable), more political dependency on Russia due to gas imports and no more electricity exports from France to surrounding countries (France is a net exporter of energy thanks to nuclear) potentially leading to a more unstable European grid. I don't get it. [1]https://www.nucnet.org/news/france-plans-to-delay-shutdown-of-some-nuclear-plants-by-10-years https://www.nucnet.org/news/france-plans-to-delay-shutdown-o... [2]https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...
- seabrookmx 7y agoHow many of those grey dots representing "closing" plants are actually just converting to another type of petroleum? Like natural gas? Certainly an improvement but it's not like we're replacing them all with renewables or nuclear.
- disordinary 7y agoI'd say a good chunk of them, but hopefully at the same time other gas stations are being decommissioned and replaced with sustainable generation. If I look at NZ then in the last ten years pretty much all coal generation has moved to gas but in the same period about the same amount of gas generation was decommissioned and replaced with wind with thousand more MW of generation from wind and tidal consented to be built.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoNatural gas is likely as bad or in some cases worse than coal from a climate change perspective (mostly due to pipeline leaks and leaks at the fracking sites). Switching from coal to nat gas may be better for air pollution deaths, but it's just as bad for climate change. https://scienceblog.com/509512/fracking-prompts-global-spike-in-atmospheric-methane/ https://scienceblog.com/509512/fracking-prompts-global-spike...
- disordinary 7y agoThe article I read in NZ showed that natural gas had about half the emissions of coal overall. New Zealand is very seismically active so there's a lot of gas and most probably it's close to the generators. The intention is to move from coal to gas to tide the country over until it can be replaced by wind and tidal. The goal was recently raised from 90 - 95% renewable generation by 2025. Right now on average it sits at 83% renewable but in summer when electricity usage is lower it can be more than 90%.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoIt's roughly half as bad as coal nominally, as in when combusted. It's when you look at the whole system, including pipeline leaks and fracking-site leaks that it starts getting bad. So changing infrastructure from coal to gas is approximately worthless from a climate change perspective.
- disordinary 7y agoThe Huntly power plant in New Zealand is mainly natural gas now. It does maintain the last two coal generators in New Zealand but the intention of these are to be used as an emergency supply when there's a shortfall from hydro and wind. It's not fired consistently and it's usage fluctuates renewable generation in NZ from ~95% when it's off to ~80% when it's running. It was supposed to be shut down in 2016 but that was pushed back to 2025 when NZ is supposed to be above 90% renewable generation consistently.
- abootstrapper 7y agoThose purple circles are pretty depressing.
- maciejw 7y agoI live in Poland which is one of the notorious coal using countries (roughly 0.5% of world's population and 1% of world's CO2 emissions). For Poland this list of coal power plants is not complete - it does not contain smaller CHP (combined heat and power) plants. However these facilities are cleaner and more efficient than burning coal at individual households, so their environmental impact is probably positive.
- kmlx 7y ago“than burning coal at individual households” wait, what? who’s burning coal at home? :) can you imagine the discussions in those households?
- gambiting 7y agoWhat do you mean? There's still plenty of houses in Poland that use regular coal for heating. There's been a lot of movement towards banning it but there's always the "but what about poor people" argument. Sometimes you can get funding for replacing a coal fired boiler with either one that burns eco-pellets or a gas one, but people are often unwilling as both fuels are more expensive than just buying a tonne of coal at the beginning of every winter - the argument that made my grandparents switch(and only last year!) from a coal fired boiler to a gas one was purely one of convenience, grandpa is too old now to go to the boiler room every few hours to add some coal to the fire, so a gas boiler makes it easier for them. But of course they complained about the absolute fortune that gas will cost them over coal.
- sm4rk0 7y agoInteresting map to compare with: https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather-maps/?variable=cams_so2&level=surface&lines=none&mapcenter=39.5718N19.1602&zoom=3 https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather-maps/?variable=cams_so2...
- CriticalCathed 7y agoThat large high concentration area in Siberia. Is that permafrost melt?
- disordinary 7y agoMaybe? There's also a lot of mining up there and gas production. In New Zealand the high concentration area is just south of a few active volcano's so it seems that some of it on that map is probably natural causes.
- sm4rk0 7y agoHere's an article on that: https://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2019/05/sulphur-dioxide-emissios-in-siberia.html https://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2019/05/sulphur-dioxide-e... And another one from NASA: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/36063/sulfur-dioxide-from-norilsk-russia https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/36063/sulfur-dioxid...
- CriticalCathed 7y agoI deeply appreciate your comment. Thank you. Choice quote for others sourced from the first link: >Whilst sulphur dioxide emissions are definitely associated with pollution from the mining of nickel these emissions that Dave and Margo have observed are far too extensive for this to be more than a partial explanation. >It is simply much too large. >Also of interest, the emissions are intermittent just as methane emissions are. >One very reasonable hypothesis is that there have been geological changes which is leading to magma coming to the surface much as it did in the Permian extinction.
- Whatarethese 7y agoWhy does China continue to lead the world in so many terrible categories. Biggest polluter, tons of human rights violations. Just a terrible country with awful leadership.
- lolc 7y agoIt would be nice if they were better but if we assume that every human generates the same amount of terribleness, then China is going to lead in all categories if you just sum up by country. China happens to be leading in the number of well-fed people. What's terrible about that?
- quonn 7y agoMaybe they are leading in the relative improvement. I doubt people are better fed than in a European well-fare state. Do you have a source for this?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lolc 7y agoI don't understand why you want a source for this because the statement relies on only two well-known facts: 1. China has the largest population of all countries. 2. There is no famine in China.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoImagine a world where China split in two, East China and West China with each having 50% of the population. Each of those countries would have half the pollution, half the human rights violations of the current China. Just as much suffering, just as much pollution overall though. If you want to make an informative comparison you have to do it on a per-capita basis.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIndeed. Worth remembering that for these issues, China should be compared not versus another country, but vs. all Europe, or whole North America.
- kossmoboleat 7y agoIt mentions the German plants are closing, but the plan is to do this in 2038...
- pxi 7y agoMeanwhile in South Australia ... : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_South_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Sout...
- lota-putty 7y agoAre there any statistics on cumulative coal burn estimates by countries till date? (let alone per capita & country's resources) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining I'm sure adoption of coal along with petroleum was well praised in the west during onset of industrial revolution.
- kzrdude 7y agoThis does not include other industrial users who are burning coal. For example the use of coal in Swedish steel industry (and steel industries around the world). This energy use in coal is significant, the statistics in the following link show that it is using around 13 TWh per year in Sweden, which is approximately equivalent to 20 years of power consumption for Stockholm's municipality. https://www.jernkontoret.se/en/the-steel-industry/industry-facts-and-statistics/energy-use/ https://www.jernkontoret.se/en/the-steel-industry/industry-f...
- hannob 7y agoThey seem to have a very optimistic view on "closing" coal plants. E.g. all the plants in germany are colored as "closing". Germany has a vague plan for coal phaseout in 2038, which is a) still almost 20 years in the future and b) not in any way binding yet, it's jut a vague plan. (I do hope and actually believe that coal plants in germany will be closed much earlier than 2038 though...)
- Krasnol 7y agoThere is nothing vague about it and it may even happen earlier and nobody is talking about it happening later or not at all.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoThey will be closed earlier. Renewables and batteries will be cheaper than existing coal before 2038, meaning replacement will cost less than running these old plants.
- tontonius 7y agoLet's see... 2024100 MW (2018) of coal power would translate to roughly 1,76 Gt of CO2 emissions (ballparking an average of 870g CO2 / kW produced). That's 1,76 billion tonnes of CO2 - a hefty environmental price for electricity. If the same power was produced in nuclear power plants that figure would be something like 0,02 Gt of CO2 (calculating at 0,012 kg CO2/kW) a 98.6% reduction of emissions. Sure nuclear is more expensive, but what is a global ecosystem worth? Food for thought.
- Aardwolf 7y agoIs there any relevant difference between the subcritical and supercritical ones?
- thinkcontext 7y agoHigher temps which means better efficiency and cleaner emissions. Ultra-supercritical is the current latest technology, though there aren't many of those.
- amriksohata 7y agoIndia and China output a lot, but to manufacture items for the west. A lot of Chinese and Indian government officials would turn around and say, show this map 50 years ago when your industries were growing and you had the fast economic growth. Now its their turn the are being curbed. The solution is to help these countries build better infrastructure, rather than blame them for our own demands.
- mattfrommars 7y agoI feel as if my nation has been the dumbest if not the most left behind country in the world, Pakistan. The nation is riddled with annual energy crisis and just falling behind in world economic growth. Not only is the energy crisis with black outs an occurrence but electricity itself is expensive. Far more expensive what the end consumer ends up paying compared to nations here in the West or China. et the nation's politicians continue to popularize the use of solar which is stupidly expensive for scale of energy we need and far less reliant on local resources. It does indeed saddens me.
- WhompingWindows 7y agoHow much does electricity cost for you? What sort of blackouts/brownouts did you experience? It's around 10-20 cents per kWh in my state, for reference.
- gridlockd 7y agoCoal plants in Australia, the UK and Germany are "closing"? Yeah, sure. They'll be "closing" for several decades to come, because neither country has a solution for its energy needs. There should be a financial instrument to bet against governments making good on their grandiose plans for green energy. That might raise the odds of them actually succeeding.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> There should be a financial instrument to bet against governments making good on their grandiose plans for green energy. Effectively, there is: you purchase securities relating to the industries that would be negatively impacted if the plans were realized (e.g., for the things you are talking about here, coal industry stocks.)
- gridlockd 7y agoThis isn't quite the same, because governments can simultaneously ruin these businesses while still failing on their goals.
- ninju 7y agoSo what can be done about China? They are going the wrong way and account for a sizable percentage. All reductions done by the rest of world have been offset (and then some) by their grown