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U.K. Will Stop Using Coal Power in Just Three Years

79 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
We are almost there now: https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2020-07-01&&_k=cvsej2 https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&sta... It started in the nineties with the dash for gas, before climate change was so prominent in the news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_for_Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_for_Gas
- ars 5y ago
  The US is getting there as well: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php In 10 years the US has more than halved its usage. China on the other hand, went up at the same time the US went down: https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-consumption-in-oil-equivalent/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-cons...
  - Retric 5y ago
    In 2010 coal was 80% of China’s electricity generation, in 2019 it was 57.7%. So they are arguably making quite a bit of progress here, though electricity demand keeps skyrocketing. Eventually old coal plants do get decommissioned, so arguably the most important factor is the ratio of new coal vs wind/hydro/solar.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  The 1.4GW North Sea Link from the UK to Norway is in testing; once operational in October 2021, it’ll be importing clean hydro from Norway during peak demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link
MaxHoppersGhost 5y ago
Meanwhile >50% of China’s electricity comes from coal and they are currently building >100 new coal plants.
- Afforess 5y ago
  If you make a low effort comment, I'll make a low-effort rebuttal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- _Microft 5y ago
  That does not mean that we cannot or should not try because if we want this change (and we need it!) someone just has to start.
  - ars 5y ago
    I didn't read his comment that way, rather than our focus on where change is needed should be elsewhere. Environmentalists far too often celebrate symbolic and useless wins, like the plastic straw ban, that doesn't actually do anything. That sounds bad ... I don't mean this win is useless - this win is awesome, but no one should rest on their laurels.
    - MaxHoppersGhost 5y ago
      Exactly. The biggest impact we could make is to hold China accountable. But it’s also not popular and doesn’t make people feel warm and fuzzy like banning plastic straws does.
      - _Microft 5y ago
        Your initial comment would have been a lot better if you had actually included that part ("The biggest impact we could make is to hold China accountable because 50% of their electricity ..."). As it is it looks a lot like whataboutism as another commenter remarked.
- 5y ago
Syonyk 5y ago
What's the actual GHG impact of this, given that it seems to involve moving over to natural gas, which is ~80x the impact in a 20 year span, and seems to leak from just about everything if you look at the methane levels downstream of anything that extracts or consumes large amounts of it? "Not using coal" is great, but if it's replaced with "We leak enough methane to have 10x the impact in the next 25 years," it's not a particularly useful direction.
- Retric 5y ago
  Natural gas isn’t replacing coal 1:1 or releasing nearly that much methane. Natural gas is actually quite expensive per kWh and ramps down in favor of every other energy source most notably Wind and Solar. However, it’s in effect the cheapest grid storage option as standby gas turbines are extremely cheap, and unburied methane doesn’t degrade. The only way to dislodge Natural Gas long term is to come up cheap grid storage options.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    I'd be interested in seeing somebody work the math, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to keep natural gas on standby for the foreseeable future. If it's the sort of thing that has to run 10% of the year on nights of still wind, it's still a 90% reduction in fossil fuel consumption. That's not zero, but close enough that we'd start looking at the many, many other sources of CO2 and take the focus off of electricity generation. I am, of course, spitballing that number. I have no idea of it's 10%, or 25%, or 1%. Whatever it is, grid storage will be able to gradually phase out natural gas, without requiring any especially technological or legal breakthroughs. Save those for the other sources of CO2 -- farm animals, concrete, eternalized CO2 production due to globalized manufacturing, etc.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    However, the UK has a lot of Combined Cycle gas turbines. Almost all of them in fact. CCGT is more efficient but not so much in the spin-up/ spin-down phase. I suspect that it's much cheaper to spin a CCGT down to idle power output for a while than switch it off and soon after back on again. Which is fine so long as the difference between idle power and peak power needed in the UK matches the range of our CCGTs. A ramp of 5GW output, over two hours is something they're doing every day. But what if it was 10GW in thirty minutes? 15GW in twenty minutes? Something has to give. You can definitely see in the data on a night with strong winds, it isn't the CCGTs that stop first. As winds pick up, the CCGTs reduce power output, but at a low point they continue where they are and the UK stops importing power instead. To a considerable extent that's cheap French nuclear power, which means low carbon. There is no way gas is cheaper than that. I'd guess the CCGTs would rather lose money for an hour (or two?) selling electricity for less than the gas cost to make it, than switch off and start again cold in a few hours.
jordache 5y ago
this is good. Could care less about the coal industry. let it diminish like the tobacco industry
- dang 5y ago
  Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

79 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

We are almost there now: https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2020-07-01&&_k=cvsej2 https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&sta... It started in the nineties with the dash for gas, before climate change was so prominent in the news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_for_Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_for_Gas

ars 5y ago
The US is getting there as well: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php In 10 years the US has more than halved its usage. China on the other hand, went up at the same time the US went down: https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-consumption-in-oil-equivalent/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265491/chinese-coal-cons...
- Retric 5y ago
  In 2010 coal was 80% of China’s electricity generation, in 2019 it was 57.7%. So they are arguably making quite a bit of progress here, though electricity demand keeps skyrocketing. Eventually old coal plants do get decommissioned, so arguably the most important factor is the ratio of new coal vs wind/hydro/solar.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
The 1.4GW North Sea Link from the UK to Norway is in testing; once operational in October 2021, it’ll be importing clean hydro from Norway during peak demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link

MaxHoppersGhost 5y ago

Meanwhile >50% of China’s electricity comes from coal and they are currently building >100 new coal plants.

Afforess 5y ago
If you make a low effort comment, I'll make a low-effort rebuttal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
_Microft 5y ago
That does not mean that we cannot or should not try because if we want this change (and we need it!) someone just has to start.
- ars 5y ago
  I didn't read his comment that way, rather than our focus on where change is needed should be elsewhere. Environmentalists far too often celebrate symbolic and useless wins, like the plastic straw ban, that doesn't actually do anything. That sounds bad ... I don't mean this win is useless - this win is awesome, but no one should rest on their laurels.
  - MaxHoppersGhost 5y ago
    Exactly. The biggest impact we could make is to hold China accountable. But it’s also not popular and doesn’t make people feel warm and fuzzy like banning plastic straws does.
    - _Microft 5y ago
      Your initial comment would have been a lot better if you had actually included that part ("The biggest impact we could make is to hold China accountable because 50% of their electricity ..."). As it is it looks a lot like whataboutism as another commenter remarked.
5y ago

Syonyk 5y ago

What's the actual GHG impact of this, given that it seems to involve moving over to natural gas, which is ~80x the impact in a 20 year span, and seems to leak from just about everything if you look at the methane levels downstream of anything that extracts or consumes large amounts of it? "Not using coal" is great, but if it's replaced with "We leak enough methane to have 10x the impact in the next 25 years," it's not a particularly useful direction.

Retric 5y ago
Natural gas isn’t replacing coal 1:1 or releasing nearly that much methane. Natural gas is actually quite expensive per kWh and ramps down in favor of every other energy source most notably Wind and Solar. However, it’s in effect the cheapest grid storage option as standby gas turbines are extremely cheap, and unburied methane doesn’t degrade. The only way to dislodge Natural Gas long term is to come up cheap grid storage options.
- jfengel 5y ago
  I'd be interested in seeing somebody work the math, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to keep natural gas on standby for the foreseeable future. If it's the sort of thing that has to run 10% of the year on nights of still wind, it's still a 90% reduction in fossil fuel consumption. That's not zero, but close enough that we'd start looking at the many, many other sources of CO2 and take the focus off of electricity generation. I am, of course, spitballing that number. I have no idea of it's 10%, or 25%, or 1%. Whatever it is, grid storage will be able to gradually phase out natural gas, without requiring any especially technological or legal breakthroughs. Save those for the other sources of CO2 -- farm animals, concrete, eternalized CO2 production due to globalized manufacturing, etc.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  However, the UK has a lot of Combined Cycle gas turbines. Almost all of them in fact. CCGT is more efficient but not so much in the spin-up/ spin-down phase. I suspect that it's much cheaper to spin a CCGT down to idle power output for a while than switch it off and soon after back on again. Which is fine so long as the difference between idle power and peak power needed in the UK matches the range of our CCGTs. A ramp of 5GW output, over two hours is something they're doing every day. But what if it was 10GW in thirty minutes? 15GW in twenty minutes? Something has to give. You can definitely see in the data on a night with strong winds, it isn't the CCGTs that stop first. As winds pick up, the CCGTs reduce power output, but at a low point they continue where they are and the UK stops importing power instead. To a considerable extent that's cheap French nuclear power, which means low carbon. There is no way gas is cheaper than that. I'd guess the CCGTs would rather lose money for an hour (or two?) selling electricity for less than the gas cost to make it, than switch off and start again cold in a few hours.

jordache 5y ago

this is good. Could care less about the coal industry. let it diminish like the tobacco industry

dang 5y ago
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.